


Someone New

by CruelisnotMason



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Conflict Resolution, Established Relationship, Friends With Benefits, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Humor, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Married Couple, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Sheith are dumb husbands accidentally wooing the same person, Smut, s8 doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:29:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelisnotMason/pseuds/CruelisnotMason
Summary: When they first negotiated opening up their marriage, there were three rules. One, there’s no one off limits. Two, if they develop feelings, they need to talk about it. Three, they won’t tell each other who they are seeing.
Relationships: Acxa/Veronica (Voltron), Adam/Keith (Voltron), Adam/Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58





	Someone New

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest I've got lots of thoughts on Shiro's and Adam's break-up that no one ever wants to hear so I wrote a fic about it. Obviously it's adasheith bc that's how I roooollll
> 
> Anyway, it all started with [@benicemurphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy/pseuds/benicemurphy) throwing the prompt 'they both don't know they are fucking the same person' at various throuples, so it all thanks to her that I've written this monster. She also beta'd this thing and encouraged me where she could because I've kind of lost all hope in this and writing in general.
> 
> Haah. What else is new. 
> 
> Either way, I hope you enjoy this flimsy excuse for a polyamory relationship depiction (but nobody's on here for realness, or are they?)!!! Lemme know if you like it!!! If it was bad I don't need to know, it's ok!!!

Usually, Keith’s stays on Earth are filled with lonely nights. Of all the things, he definitely hasn’t missed _them_. 

Keith’s original presumptions about his life as a lone wolf haven’t aged well: That he’ll miss being alone after working tightly squished between Blades for months, that he’ll be sick of human contact, alien contact, social contacts for that matter. It’s true that exhaustion will creep upon him rather quickly when he’s around people, and yet his presumptions never end up holding any truth to them. 

It’s perhaps due to the fact that being back on Earth feels like a clear cut; and that since Galra occupation, Earth has become somewhat... emptier. Compared to the Blade headquarters, all of Earth suddenly feels like the empty desert. 

During the day, Keith does enjoy its quiet, the burning sun on his skin, and the clear sight of bright blue sky all around him until his eyes rest on the blurry line of the canyon on the horizon. At night without the soothing howl of wild coyotes or owls, with a sky full of stars that reminds him of Shiro and space travel, it hits differently. 

Suddenly, Keith’s on that porch again, thrown back to a time when he felt most lonely. Keith relives the day, when he’s fifteen and listening to the fireman who explains that his dad ran into flames so tall they seemed to lick the sky and fog so dark no one could see their own hand. Not to mention a self-sacrificing fireman. 

Once Keith fooled his heart into a careless manner, and it was what saved him in the end. 

Once the protective wall crumbled down, Keith couldn’t pretend he didn’t care about being alone anymore.

 _Shiro_ , Keith thinks every day he watches the sunset on earth. 

He’s missing Shiro.

##### ________________

Every time Keith returns to Earth with no one waiting for him, the thought of getting back to work seems more appalling. Nonetheless, he pushes himself to rest, smiling to himself because he knows a certain someone would be very adamant about it. 

But no amount of work on his hover bike, on his very own spaceship or on the shack is enough to put the demons of the past at ease. Or helps feeling less alone.

Currently, Keith _isn’t_ alone, though.

He’s on Earth, standing in a too bright flat with not enough furniture or decoration to deem it a comfortable place to live. There are a ton of books here and there, but not even a TV. Last time Keith came by, he kept wondering if Adam doesn't like to watch anything, but doesn’t ask this time either.

 _Are you really so uptight that you don’t even watch movies?_ The playful remark lies heavy on his tongue. Keith has learned since, that impulsive thoughts are better kept to himself, as long as he doesn't plan on sounding like a bratty teen. The kind who starts fight and steals cars. Tonight, that’s definitely not the impression he wants to create.

If Adam knew Keith any better, he‘d know that Keith isn’t a wine guy at all. That Keith likes to watch stupid movies but not enough to buy a bigger TV for the shack. Adam would know that Keith deems himself to be the last person that fits into Adam's living room and yet he's here. They both are; awkwardly standing in the living room, with neither of them really knowing which step comes first.

Keith’s wonders if Adam’s impression of him is ‘easy’ because after Keith keeps staring down his wine glass even during a shoulder massage that ought to be relaxing and not make Keith even tenser, Adam nods toward his bedroom.

Keith reminds himself it’s an offer, not a suggestion. 

He then takes his first sip of the evening in one second, and stomps off into the bedroom in the next. Weirdly enough, him being nervous manifests itself in Keith’s boldest behaviors. 

“Have you eaten?” Adam suddenly asks from behind, trailing after Keith into the room.

Keith looks over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he lies, certain he won’t be able to eat now, with his stomach doing flips only thinking about it.

Luckily, Adam doesn’t question him— why would he?— therefore nods and flops into the cloudy cushions of his bed like a wet sack. 

Keith watches Adam from his secure place in the middle of the room, wine glass still in his hand as if he’s supposed to serve it to someone else. Likewise, Adam looks back at him with a raise of his eyebrows, obviously waiting for something to happen.

Right.

Keith now frowns back, unintentionally. Adam breaks into a smile. 

It’s as if they’ve never been in the same room before. Or even held a conversation. 

But they have been, even before this— whatever it is— really started. Back when the Paladins made it to Earth and prepared for war, Keith visited Adam together with Shiro. It was Shiro who wanted to see if Adam was alright. 

Back then Keith only stood numbly by Shiro’s side, unable to listen to Shiro and Adam talking quietly and hushed, sharing a hug that wasn’t as intimate as it was needed. Keith just stood by the side, looking at the ex-fiancé of his best friend, lucky he was still alive. Because that was one tragedy more avoided.

There wasn’t really anything else that linked Keith to Adam. But now they’re here.

“You don’t like wine,” Adam remarks after the five-trillionth twirl of the wine glass in Keith’s hand.

Despite feeling caught, the statement acts like an ice breaker. “No,” Keith admits, and feels the weight drop off his shoulders.

Adam snorts. “You don’t have to drink it.”

“Or pretend to drink it,” Keith agrees with a small smile before he puts the wine glass on the nightstand. Adam must have seen right through him earlier and kept his quiet, too polite to say anything right away.

But if he were Shiro— Keith allows that dangerous thought— Adam would have taken the glass out of Keith’s hand, and busied him instead by kissing him, crowded against the wall. 

But Adam is so unhurried as if this is just a lesson at the Garrison for him. Keith’s his smart but lazy student, while Adam has the patience of a saint— if not too much patience.

At least for Keith’s liking; because the anticipation of what _could_ happen is killing him.

Keith tries a bold move, and gets on the bed. Keith feels the smooth sheets against his back and under his palms. He tests the feeling of it under him. It’s really comfortable. Adam didn’t lie.

The first time Keith came here, Adam mentioned his bed at one point. How comfortable it is. _Cloudlike_. Keith’s not that thick, but with Adam he thought the conversation was _meant_ to be about the bed, and not as a broad wink for something else. In his memories, he always saw Adam as a strict person, not as the goof he really turned out to be in the past few months.

Adam has been and still looks and talks so proper, with his relaxed and unhurried manner. Keith should have been able to know he’s smooth in private, too.

Keith leans over to dare a first touch. He reaches out with his right hand and hovers over Adam to stroke a part of his curly fringe out of his face. Keith can hear Adam breathe flatly, and strokes through his hair gently, then down over his temple and skin. 

Adam looks good in his shirt, but also gentle. There’s a little mischievous spark in his eye, but Keith tries hard to ignore it, and tentatively explores Adam’s still-clothed body on his own.

After a while— he must have deemed it enough time for Keith to explore securely— Adam’s hands touch Keith’s waist and squeeze there once, while Keith musters his courage from above. Adam must be able to tell that he’s too nervous, eyes blinking slowly at him.

With his next heartbeat, Keith pushes himself to be bold, and leans down to kiss him. 

Even though Keith is hardly a novice at kissing, it feels much like a first kiss. The angle, the pace— everything’s off at first. Keith can’t help giggling when they click teeth, but for Adam it seems to be serious business now: He kisses cautiously and without fierceness, at least until Keith stops laughing, encouraged to grow bolder. Only then Adam licks, nips, teases, and unpacks his whole repertoire of dizzying kisses that make Keith putty in his hands.

Keith's heart beats a thousand miles a minute, both from the feeling that kissing Adam is wrong, wrong, wrong— and not meant to feel so comforting and refreshing. It’s confusing, because it _should_ feel, no, it _is_ allowed, but his uncertainty is in full swing. 

He’s not breaking any rules, that it’s simply the first time he’s used this kind of freedom for himself.

Luckily, or maybe it’s Keith’s downfall, Adam kisses well, and that _sucker_ knows. He smiles when he pushes Keith back into the cushions to reverse their positions. It knocks the air out of Keith together with his worries (at least for the moment). Adam’s hands still hover in a decent place above Keith’s clothes— not that it is any help at calming Keith in contrast to Adam’s skillful, teasing kisses.

He loses himself too much too quickly in them, and soon, he’s breathless.

“Hey,” Adam asks softly, nosing at Keith’s jaw instead to give him a break. “Everything alright?”

In a daze still, Keith takes some time to realize that they’ve stopped, and blinks up at Adam’s concerned face. Aside from all the teasing, and his rogue nature behind the gentle outside, Adam is still sincere, and looks almost worried for Keith. 

Quickly, Keith nods to reassure him, but it’s not convincing; Adam pulls back. But Keith won’t have that; Adam made him feel good, made him feel _things_. And most of all, he made Keith feel something besides the nagging loneliness.

“I’m good,” Keith insists as he pulls closer, and they both dive into the feeling together once more.

Adam fucks like he talks: Unhurried, soft, _comfortable_. Also, so unforeseeably _good_ and satisfying that every time it happens, Keith feels mushy inside and outside.

First, it’s _once in a while_ that they meet. Then Keith finds out that Adam loves finding new restaurants to eat at, but has only a few close friends to bring. Few of them are still in touch or worse, even _alive_. But restaurants? They pop up every other day.

“This feels like a pity fuck to me,” Adam says, eyeing a plate of beautifully garnished and arranged tacos, with green shells instead of the typical yellow-ish ones. 

Keith doesn’t want to add that there’s a small part of pity involved, but not necessarily for Adam. He also doesn’t mention how this might be Keith's highlight of his weekend, and if it wasn’t for tacos with Adam tonight, he would drink two-and-a-half beers and share a frozen lasagna with Kosmo on the front porch of his dad’s old shack.

“We’re not even fucking,” Keith says instead of all of that. He eyes the tacos too, curiously, and there are tears threatening to form in the corners of his eyes. Partly because he got too close to the plate and the smell of hot sauce, partly because he’ll never get used to the fact that Adam who he thought was once so strict, was an actual funny dude. Additionally, Keith struggles to not simply bark out a laugh for Adam agreeing to bring Keith to this rather high-class place. 

“See,” Adam nods, picks up a taco and bites into it with a loud crunch. The hard shell falls apart before it even makes it to his mouth. “That’s why I don’t trust this.” He nods at Keith for emphasis, as if Keith didn’t get it just like this.

“Fuck off.” Keith laughs and watches Adam munch on the juicy beef-and-salad stuffing, and pick up an actual cloth napkin to wipe his mouth with it. “Take it or leave it,” he dares.

The tacos are good, even though they are overpriced for all it’s worth. 

Between bites, Keith tells Adam that he’s convinced the extra _‘outer space garlic_ ’ that added 10 credits to their tap was regular garlic left too long on the cupboard. It draws a laugh from Adam, and Keith feels so successful at cheering up his newfound... _friend_ , that he’s not even surprised that he notes how attractive Adam is when he’s happy.

Right when Adam reaches over the table for his hand, Keith pushes that thought aside though.

“Oh.” Keith pulls back instantly.

“Oh,” says Adam too, and does the same. “Not when we’re outside?”

There’s a space— an ambiguity— in them meeting. Keith’s not opposed to any direction this could go. But he’s still reluctant, and even though he’s not feeling it as often as when they are at Adam’s, Keith still feels like he’s doing something _wrong_.

Keith blinks the returning hot sauce smell out of his eye. “Uh. No,” he says. 

Adam nods and shrugs, reaches out for another taco. “You know, I’m gonna eat this alone if you don’t hurry.”

Relieved, Keith laughs out a shaky breath. “Don’t you dare.”

##### ________________

After their very first meet-up-turned-date, Keith comes home to an empty shack later that night, with only a kiss at Adam’s front door lingering on his mouth, and conflicting feelings fighting against the dizzy excitement in his heart.

Keith rides the hoverbike to the back, turns the engine off with a roar, takes an old dirty rag to dust of some of the dirt that got sprinkled all over the console when he took the curve too slow right before the last building before the town opens into the desert.

He yawns and throws his discarded jacket over his back, slowly walks back to the shack without any hurry in his steps and wonders why Kosmo hasn’t come to greet him yet.

The shack lies quiet, in the darkness, only the black mountain line to lean against it, and the stars to shine some scarce light from above on it. Keith takes a moment to look up and trace every single constellation he has known since his childhood years.

The sudden sound of steps and clatter of dishes pulls Keith out of it, and he looks back to the shack in surprise.

“...can’t be,” he mutters, although there’s no single soul to hear him out here. Nothing in the world able to slow him down at his first suspicion, he flies up the steps to the front door.

Barely at the top of the steps, the door already opens. But there’s so much haste in Keith’s steps, and as a result, unable to stop himself, Keith crashes into Shiro’s muscular chest.

“Surprise,” Shiro laughs out a breath, hands so firmly catching Keith..

There’s no time for words; Keith’s body moves on it’s own. Wherever he can reach, he’s plastering Shiro with kisses, desperation and passion in each of those. “You’re back,” he says in between every enthusiastic press of his mouth. “You’re back!” Keith repeats, coarse, breathlessly.

“Yeah.” Shiro catches up quickly, just as stormy— he must have gotten that habit from Keith— to be just as quick and filterless. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, hands finding Keith’s hair and scalp, stroking through black strands. Soon his smaller hand rests near Keith’s temple, and the Altean one steadies Keith’s neck.

It’s kisses— kisses everywhere, up and down each other’s faces, necks, chests. Keith shoves Shiro against the nearest wall and forgets about closing the door, welcomes Shiro pushing back against him, the hot breath on his skin, and the skillful hands shoving clothing items up or down or off Keith’s body, to expose scarred skin to cool air, and cover every inch of it with his mouth.

“Shiro,” Keith groans, and leans back for a moment. Shiro uses Keith’s lack of attention and strength to hold himself up, and pushes Keith up against the wall.

“Want to be in you,” Shiro groans next to Keith’s ear, and bucks his hips into him to underline his statement. It took barely anything to make him hard, and it spurs Keith on only more.

Keith laughs, stutters, shouts, fingernails gripping into Shiro’s shoulders hard. When Shiro hikes him up a little higher without warning, Keith gives a surprised yelp that turns into laughter again, then into drawn out moans and more kissing.

They buck into each other with Keith against the wall and Shiro holding and pressing against him, crowding him, so Keith can’t even think of escaping — not that he wanted. Because of the angle, the friction is barely there, but the messy kissing, the hands ripping on each other’s hair skin and clothes is more than enough to spike unbearable arousal in each other.

“Please Shiro,” Keith begs, voice low and rough, “please, I want you—“

Shiro lets him slide out of his hold, and as soon as Keith’s feet touch the ground again, he shoves his pants down together with his underwear. Shiro’s laughs turn into breathy hitches when soon Keith’s hands turn to his pants, and shove them down in an equally swift move.

Now that they are both standing bare in front of each other, there’s time to slow down to kiss, touch, let hands wander south. Soon, Shiro wraps a hand around them both, and strokes, in well known, familiar movements.

“Can you take me like that?” Keith asks and points at the wall behind him.

“Fuck, Keith. _Easily_ ,” Shiro sighs.

Shiro’s confidence is hot, and so is the way he’s working Keith. One of Keith’s legs is hiked up over Shiro’s hip while Shiro starts to finger him open. Keith grips his shoulder to stabilize himself, and also because the way Shiro’s fingers curl in and out feels so damn good.

The balance act a few minutes later is another story, and they grin and chuckle through it, until at some point, it really hits the spot right, and Shiro’s prior confidence takes up on its promise. In the quiet shack, their breaths come closer to becoming one synchronized sound with ever of Shiro’s shallow thrusts. Keith really loves how he groans and grunts and is fully able to hold him up, not only because of that giant Altean Arm but also his own delicious strength, and yet doesn’t strain a muscle or breath.

Keith cages Shiro with his thighs and starts kissing him again, mostly missing his lips because of the repercussions of Shiro railing him against the wall.

“Fuck, Shiro. Don’t stop—” Keith groans and tries to move his hips with him, but to no avail. Shiro holds him tight and safe, and it’s good to lose all control to his husband, who he has not seen in a long time.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Shiro breathes into his ear, untangles his right arm, to stroke Keith off in time with his thrusts.

“Fucking show-off,” Keith calls him. Instead of sounding cool and composed, it comes out like a squeak. Shiro barks a laugh, as Keith shutters under his hand and comes.

An hour later, Shiro still walks around the shack nacked, but Keith doesn’t mind it the least. He appreciates quietly first, then with his eyes following and low sighs, finally with teasing whistles until Shiro comes up to him, pushing him back into bed.

“Did you have a good day today?” Shiro asks while he pushes Keith into the cushions with his weight. Keith grunts and hugs him, peppers him with kisses. 

“Yeah,” Keith sighs, hand lazily stroking over Shiro’s back, “but now it’s fucking fantastic.”

He kisses Shiro’s already swollen lips, brushes through the undercut, and softly massages there. A small sigh leaves Shiro, before he kisses back eagerly, and loses his hands in Keith’s black strands.

“Not bad.” Shiro smiles against his lips and promptly earns a light slap against the back of his head. “Best evening of my life,” Shiro corrects and Keith cradles him close again, jaw almost hurting from his smile.

“Shiro?” It’s a soft mutter against skin.

“Mhm?” The Altean hand brushes over Keith’s head in calming movements.

“Next year, we’ll be working together,” Keith states. 

Shiro smiles into his wild hair. “Yeah.”

With the moon up high, they resume soft kisses and teasing nips, eyes closed half the time when fatigue catches up. But it doesn’t exclude things getting heated again in the wake in-betweens, with roaming hands and wandering mouths, where they enjoy every inch of skin and hair the other can offer in the darkest night. 

Only when the sun kisses the mountain peaks in the early hours and starts warming up their shack, the soft sound of Shiro’s snore pulls Keith too into sleep, warmed by the comforting press of his husband’s body heat.

##### ________________

##### ________________

A couple days ago Keith left for the Blades, just in time for Shiro to come back. At least the phrase ‘we should wave when we pass each other’ pulls a giggle from Keith every time. Other than that, time apart from each other is always a downer.

Shiro knows him and Keith are both disastrous at handling off-days from work, and it’s always better when they schedule their holidays together. Only that is almost never possible, which is why next year, they’ll finally hand in their letters of resignation and do their own thing. 

For now, Shiro’s at Keith’s shack— their shared home on earth— alone and bored. It takes only two hours— even though they haven’t been together a while before that— for Shiro to miss Keith and someone to hold him at night. But it takes two weeks until Shiro gets bored enough alone to swallow his pride.

Most of the time Shiro stays rest assured that Adam isn’t a dick about their ‘arrangement’. Then again, back in the day, Adam loved teasing Shiro just as much as Shiro loved teasing Adam. 

If Shiro were to take a good guess, Adam’s current blows are either in honor of his and Shiro’s shared past (where low blows never seemed off-limit), or in celebration that nowadays, they are getting along better. 

Shiro’s only holy rule remains Keith being off limits for the butt of Adam’s jokes, an unspoken rule that Adam respectfully never takes that far. 

Adam only _loves_ to make good fun of Shiro.

Adam, as he is, opens the door with his very neutral expression, while delivering absolute slander. “They do say you become your partner after marriage.” 

  
Shiro doesn’t need to clarify his assumption; that Adam calls him and Keith similar in appearance because of the dark eye bags Shiro has fondly grown over the last two weeks, or the spotty face from all the junk food he has eaten with a max of two hours sleep a night. Shiro doesn't care if Adam thinks his current sorry face somewhat resembles Keith’s as a teenager. 

The only logical payback is to try and meet Adam’s expectations of Shiro resembling his husband even more, and therefore shove him backwards into the flat without a warning, against the closest wall. “Thank god <em>we</em> never married then,” Shiro says, shortly before he starts kissing Adam.

“Uh-huh,” Adam utters, making himself sound as unconvincing as possible. He kisses back with fierceness, placing open-mouthed, messy drags against Shiro’s mouth almost short of biting. 

“I can fuck you now and you cook us some real food later?” Adam suggests between kisses, making Shiro giggle into them. He pulls Adam closer by his collar, but stops short.

“I forget you’re a pragmatist.”

Two silver eyes meet soothing caramel. They both love their low blows, the handling without gloves. 

“You look like _shit_ , Takashi.” 

But there’s something else too. 

Adam doesn’t beat around the bush. “Suit yourself. I’m making food if you want or not, because you just had to come by unannounced around noon.” He then steps out of Shiro’s space and towards his bedroom, already shrugging off his shirt.

Adam bites, but he always looked out for Shiro, even now. 

“Thanks, Adam,” Shiro mutters. 

As expected, Adam saw right through him. It’s no surprise either, that consistent with past times, Shiro still inhabits the tendency to stop taking care of himself when left alone. That knowledge doesn’t necessarily put the responsibility into Adam’s hands, just because Shiro found his way into Adam’s bed a couple of times. And yet.

They’re not here to rekindle old flames and familiarity. What’s giving them both a kick out of it is that there are no strings attached; no responsibility, no pressure.

What they are doing now, will never be something _final_. But that’s neither something to dwell on nor a drawback. They are both into it. 

“Are you coming?” Adam asks, with a roll of his head, and a stretch of his neck. He starts toward his bedroom, and Shiro follows, a smile on his lips and his hands in his pockets.

Sex with Adam, Shiro notes, has become surprisingly kinky. 

“You’re really getting the fuzzy handcuffs?” Shiro raises his head and flops it right back on the bed, after he sees what Adam threw right next to him. 

“Only the fuzziest ones for you.” Adam’s deadpan moulds almost an insult compared to his rather sweet words. Shiro suspects that Adam unbuttoning his shirt with a particular lack of feeling is a way to lay it on as thick as possible, making clear that this thing between them is purely transactional. 

What an ass.

But Shiro cannot make himself care about Adam’s emotionally stunted expression while he’s getting naked. Instead, he admires the slim muscular chest that peeks out of the white shirt at first, and notices with a start how deep the scars along Adam’s rib cage go. He knew Adam had scar tissue in other places— a souvenir from the lackluster first defeat of Earth’s defenses against the Galra occupation— but it’s the first time he really pays attention to all his other scars.

“What are we, _sixteen_ again?” The words fall from Shiro’s mouth automatically, as he stares at the chest, torn between continuing looking or casting his eyes away.

He decides to look up. The remark draws a grin from Adam, which he’s barely fighting. 

“If we were sixteen, I wouldn’t have bothered even taking them out. Just thought they’d make you shut up for once.”

Shiro licks his lower lip, helpless at the snarky comeback going straight to his dick. But he won’t let Adam win this time.

Shiro grins widely. “You know what you’re searching for is something else.” With a neutral look supposed to mock Adam’s earlier, he gets off his shirt, a grey one issued with the Garrison logo almost washed off. “Not exactly handcuffs.”

“I’m sure they will be of help either way.”

Shiro willingly holds up his wrists as Adam cuffs him to the Aluminium pipes of the headboard, and yelps when Adam tickles him under his armpits.

“Still ticklish,” Adam assesses. “Some things don’t change, hm.”

“Smartass,” Shiro hisses.

Not letting him time to adjust or get comfortable at first, Adam peppers kisses on Shiro’s arms, and from there wanders down his body. Shiro lets out slow, steady exhales, trying so hard to not let on how much it spurs him on when Adam handles him like this. 

He won’t give him the satisfaction of gasping or groaning until he really earned it, Shiro decides and bites his lip. 

The handcuffs don’t help; and soon he gives more and more away while Adam’s smirk grows into a full blown grin over time, until Shiro’s dick is hard and Adam laughing. 

“Adam,” Shiro groans, handcuffs clinking against the pipes with every sudden movement. “You’re such an asshole.”

“You like it,” Adam smiles, comfortable between Shiro’s legs. “And you like me topping you, even more than back when we were still together.” 

It’s a simple statement, almost harmless even. Shiro tries not to read into it, and really, he doesn’t have time to even consider what it means— other than he likes Adam’s dick up his ass. 

Adam’s hands hover inches over Shiro’s thighs, not touching him anywhere— for Shiro, it’s unbearable.

“Adam—” Shiro begs, body jerking, and finally Adam drops his hands low enough that Shiro can arch into his touch. As soon as Adam has his hands on him, the relief is instant; they warm up Shiro’s skin, hungrily explore every inch of Shiro’s skin. 

But Adam doesn’t draw out the tender moments, pouring lube onto his fingers a few seconds later. He rubs them to spread the slickness, gaze dropping between Shiro’s legs. His fingers draw slow circles near the rim, breaking down more and more of Shiro’s walls. He closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of one hand squeezing his dick while the other fingers him and slicks him up good.

“I wonder if you didn’t like it the way I did it before,” Adam says out of the blue. His own eyes widen in the same moment the words are out. Shiro’s body goes rigid.

“Huh?”

“Uh,” Adam utters and pauses all movements. As they look at each other, Shiro sees him thinking.

“What do you want to hint at, Adam?” Shiro asks him.

Maybe it’s because they’ve been through enough to still care. Or maybe Shiro’s more forgiving now than when they were together. He closes his eyes again, and after a moment of hesitation, Adam resumes pleasing him. 

Soon after, Adam is back to curling his fingers in and out of Shiro’s ass, and Shiro’s back to being as relaxed as one can be while being restrained with fuzzy handcuffs.

Shiro almost thinks they are done talking, when Adam makes an attempt at soothing his earlier remark over.

“I don’t try to compromise anything,” he states, fingers digging deeper. “Neither this or yours and Keith’s relationship. You know that, right?”

“Do I?” Shiro asks, followed with a gasp. He cracks one eye open to look at Adam and at his hand squeezing around the base of his cock. “Like this,” he encourages him, interrupting their casual talk, and sinks back into the cushions, moving his hips with Adam’s thrusting fingers.

“You should,” Adam tells him, voice neutral and completely honest. He moves his left hand up and down Shiro’s cock, squeezing from time to time, circling the head and thumbing over the slip in no hurry. “I do believe everything turned out well the way it is.”

Shiro’s hips buck up on their own, and he thrusts himself into Adam’s slick fist. He wants to say something, but comes up with nothing.

Maybe he’s misreading things. Adam has never been easy to understand.

“You look good,” Adam praises and crawls over to Shiro, hovering above him. Shiro cranes his neck up to kiss him, and Adam takes the invitation. It’s soft, unhurried. Almost with too much emotion, and something daunting curls in Shiro’s stomach. 

“Yeah?” Adam asks him, and Shiro gives a sharp nod, while not really looking at him. He spreads his legs further, when Adam drops his gaze, pulls a condom on, and guides his dick into Shiro’s ass. 

Shiro can’t hold back a groan, then bites his lip as Adam settles inside him. The first few tentative thrusts don’t really feel like anything, until the slickness and the friction start making it really, really good.

“Like that, yeah,” Shiro says, drags Adam down to kiss him. He rolls his hips to push against Adam’s steady thrusts, and groans when their contrary movements make him feel even better.

“Yes, like that,” he repeats, almost desperate while craving the feeling. 

Adam doesn’t disappoint. He’s different, and so is Shiro; but he's soft and hard with him, and eases that feeling of loneliness deep in him.

Only maybe, he heals a kind of wound in Shiro, too.

##### ________________

##### ________________

Making plans with Adam is always easy when Keith’s back on Earth, but one time Shiro comes back earlier than planned, right when Keith’s about to go out the door.

“You’re back!” Keith exclaims, like he always does, and walks up to his husband with the beautiful dimples.

“You’re about to go out,” Shiro notes after a shared kiss. “I’ll be there when you’re back.”

“No, no,” Keith protests and shoves his cheek against Shiro’s chest, listening to the low rumble of his laugh. “No.”

“Those were _three_ ‘nos’. The guy can’t be that bad.”

Keith raises his head surprised to look at Shiro, who holds up his hands in defense. “How do you know?”

Shiro nudges him with his shoulder. “I just know when you’re trying to impress a guy.”

“Bold statement for someone who didn’t know my ‘I love you’ wasn’t meant platonically.”

Shiro bites back a laugh, expression playfully offended. “If you wore your good pair of pants, I might have,” he counters. Then, because he’s an angel of a husband, “Love you.”

“I kind of want to cancel,” Keith admits, kissing his stupid husband’s face again.

“I forbid it.” Shiro nuzzles his nose against Keith’s. 

“Or I wish you could come.”

Keith says it despite knowing that there’s this clear set of rules, and that’s not within what they arranged. Also, Adam knows about Shiro, but the same can’t be said otherwise. 

When they first negotiated opening up their marriage, there were three rules. One, there’s no one off limits. Two, if they develop feelings, they need to talk about it. Three, they won’t tell each other who they are seeing. 

Shiro watches him closely, and Keith watches Shiro in return. After a while, Shiro leans down, pulling Keith close by his collar, and presses a lingering kiss on his mouth. “Maybe we can talk about things,” he proposes, and lets go of him.

Keith nods thoughtfully, stays for a moment where he is. He then seems to make up his mind, waves a hand at Shiro and walks to his hoverbike.

When he comes back later, they forget to talk about it.

Shiro greets him from the front porch stairs, and Keith sucks him off under the sky. 

The evening ends with them in bed, and Keith loudly snoring into Shiro’s armpit.

The next week feels like a total bliss. For once, they have a week off together, and they use that time thoroughly. On the third day, of sleeping, fucking, and eating in bed all day, Shiro proposes visiting their friends for a change, because one survives hiding away from civilization only for so long.

They go eat at a cheap place, right before they meet up with the Paladins. Allura talks eagerly about her own space station outpost and her work with the other Alteans, Hunk about his unexpected date with Ryan, Pidge about his newest robot and annoying brother, Lance about Veronica, his family, and Kaltenecker. Matt tags along and squints at Pidge before tousling her hair in sweet revenge. 

It’s the most fulfilling day Keith has had in months, and yet somehow he feels like something’s missing. 

But then Allura distracts him with pictures of her new girlfriend, and Lance complains loudly how his sister has no time for him since she started dating Acxa, and Pidge shoves another picture on her phone with Matt laughing milk through his nose in front of him, and the chaos of everything combined pushes all of Keith’s worries out of his mind at once. 

At a clothing store, Allura and Lance dress up, Pidge turns down Matt’s request to wear matching ‘sibling’-shirts, and Shiro goes on a hunt for a new pair of pants. Keith and Hunk stay back and watch from afar. 

“Man, you don’t realize _how much_ you miss them, when they are gone for a while,” Hunk states. 

Keith snorts a laugh. “And you never realize how much you’ll miss them when they are still with you,” he concludes. They share a look, a grin, and then Hunk opens his arms for an obligatory hug.

It’s been long since Keith has lost a good part of his human-shyness, and he willingly takes it, and doesn’t complain about the well-meant pat on the back.

Back at the shack Keith and Shiro both agree they need a vacation from this vacation over cooking dinner. Shiro’s mostly preparing it, while Keith lingers on the bed without clothes.

“I don’t want this week to be over,” Keith says, as Shiro flips the eggs in the pan.

“Me neither, babe.” Shiro slides the eggs on a plate, wipes the pan, and puts oil and vegetables in. 

Later, they sit together on the porch, eating dinner at a too-late hour, picking bits of food from the same plate because the shack doesn’t have a dishwasher and they are both lazy. The coyotes howl in the distance and draw a laugh from both of them, the stars are visible and the air is warm. 

“I love you,” Keith says and kisses Shiro’s cheek, leaving a small oily stain. 

“Love you, too,” Shiro replies as he picks up a carrot on his fork and puts it in his mouth.

They look at the horizon, pressed firmly against each other and it feels like the best end to the best day of Keith’s week, even though looking at the stars leaves him yearning.

“I love you so much,” Shiro replies. “But please put on clothes, you’ll get a cold out here.”

Keith cackles loudly, and it hollows over the empty desert. 

In his softest, roughest voice he says, “Only for you, husband.”

The end of the week comes too quickly, and it’s Keith's turn to leave first on Monday. He’s been okay in the morning, but moody right after a message from Adam. He won’t make it Sunday, he writes, and Keith feels both guilty and unfair that he’s sad about it. 

He’s sad about leaving Shiro again, first of all, but now he’s also unable to say goodbye to Adam too, and that’s kind of an issue.

It’s not an issue-issue, but something Keith definitely didn’t want to deal with right before his last day on Earth for the next two months, when he could spend the little time he always has with Shiro to… simply enjoy the time with him first.

Keith thinks if he only cools down outside the shack, hand buried in Kosmo’s fur, the feeling will simply go away, and the guilt too. He listens to the clatter of Shiro washing the dishes inside, and looks at the merciless sun in the distance. Then he puts his head on his knees.

As always, Shiro doesn’t take too long to find him.

“Babe.” He’s there instantly, puts an arm around Keith. “You are crying.”

Yes, he is. It’s dumb. It’s _stupid._ “I just don’t want that.”

Shiro has always been patient with him, and he is now. “Want what?”

Keith takes a long time to answer. 

“To have feelings for someone else.” The statement surprised himself.

Keith still hides, and therefore can’t tell what Shiro’s thinking about that bold thing he just told him, that something that must have come even more out of the blue for him than it has for Keith.

Shiro pauses. “We said it’s alright if it happens.”

“I know,” Keith says. “What happens, happens,” he repeats their words from back then, when they both agreed that missing each other is such a strong, such a destructive feeling, that they’d rather find a way to feel less alone even if they aren’t together.

“It’s not the world ending,” Shiro reassures.

They’ve seen _that_ happening after all. 

They sit there, on the porch, in the sun, wordlessly, together. Shiro doesn’t speak, just waits, just sits right there with Keith. Keith is thankful that he can share this revelation with him. He’s thankful he’s not alone. 

Love always had been something a little devastating for Keith, first because the only love he’d ever had was taken, then because he was close to dying. Now, that Keith had him, there was no reality in which he would give him up willingly, that he knew for sure.

He only wasn’t prepared for what happened, if it ever happened again to him.

Falling for Adam of all people, feels like the universe playing a sick joke on him. Keith can’t help that immediate thought, no matter how insulting it is toward Adam.

Adam is an okay guy, it's just...

“I’m not even sure if it’s, you know, _really_ anything.” The sudden urge to deny everything wins over trying to understand his feelings. 

“Keith,” Shiro says softly, and finally, Keith trusts himself to look up at Shiro. “You know, it’s alright with me. Or is there another reason? Namely that the guy is, _Idon’tknow_ , a stupid boy?” There’s a small smirk on his face and Keith can’t help but laugh. Leave it to Shiro to immediately cheer him up again. 

“No, he’s okay.” 

As much as a Keith would wish for it, Adam is _not_ a stupid boy. 

Okay, maybe he _is_ , but not in the worst possible way. Adam is not stupid in the way Lance is to Keith or Matt, he’s just. He’s serious but goofy. Vulnerable. Soft, and unashamedly so. A sprinkle of seriousness in the mix, but not as much as one would expect. He looks good. Keith always knew that part. 

But Keith can’t tell that much Shiro.

Their agreement included almost anything goes but naming the person they date, giving them both freedom _and_ security in their relationship. 

Since they first set their limits, there was never a reason to lift that rule. Since then, it's the first time someone like Adam happened to Keith. 

Keith frowns, unable to believe his own mushiness.

Compared to Shiro, Keith hasn’t had other flings. He knows his husband is more active in that aspect. More casual, too. It makes Keith wonder about what he feels in the scenario that Shiro met someone he started liking. Would he be indifferent? Jealous?

Was Keith allowed to, now that he had feelings for someone else?

“What about you?” he asks.

The question catches Shiro by surprise, but he collects himself and replies quickly.

“I would have told you if I developed feelings, right?”

Keith nods, even though he wonders what makes Shiro so sure.

“So far, nothing. I think I’ll be fine.” Shiro insists with so much certainty again that Keith frowns at him. 

“What makes you say that?”

Shiro looks at him surprised, then thinks for a second. “Feelings just never came easily for me,” he replies. “And something tells me that we wouldn’t work under different circumstances.”

It’s both vague and more informative than Keith would have thought Shiro will be about it. As a result, instead of hot burning jealousy, Keith only feels curiosity. He ponders over asking Shiro to elaborate, but he also doesn’t want to sound like he’s inquiring. Luckily, Shiro draws the focus back to Keith on his own.

“So,” he smiles and kisses Keith’s forehead, and it would almost a little condescending if Shiro wasn’t so endeared, “what are you going to do?”

The immediate thought leaves Keith’s gut dropping. Because what he hasn’t even considered until now is the possibility that Adam doesn’t even like him. And that… is a horrible thought all on its own.“I don’t know,” he says first. Then, with some optimism, “I will figure it out.”

Shiro gives him another kiss, a soft and soothing one, and Keith realizes that he doesn’t fear that that little bloom in his feelings for Adam will change anything about his love to Shiro. But he still cannot shake the belief that he only ever loved Shiro, and he’ll only ever love him.

“Come on,” Shiro says and stands, pulling Keith with him. On his questioning look, Shiro smiles relaxed and full of love. The sun reflects on his hair, and Keith realizes it’s perfect weather for one certain thing. And as he does, Shiro proposes it too, with a lazy smile and a cool-ass attitude. 

“We’re going to go hoverbiking.”

________________

________________

Shiro leaves the shack soon after Keith, and doesn’t meet Adam before he goes off-planet. Adam doesn’t seem to mind, as there is no new message even a few weeks after Shiro left. The work on the Atlas keeps him busy, and the few calls with Keith keep him sane. He loves when Keith will call him on the big screen in the Atlas control room at night, when Shiro has it all to himself because of the time difference. He feels a little guilty for sitting in his chair and jerking off to Keith’s eager eyes, knowing that the day after, his colleagues will work here.

But, well. They have a long distance relationship to maintain, and his colleagues won’t profit from a pent-up Shiro either.

Shiro thinks once or twice about the conversation they had before they both took off again, wonders what Keith decided to do. He doesn’t ask him directly, because he doesn’t want to impose his decision. Additionally, Keith decides how much he wants to talk about it.

He can understand Keith’s emotional state, but he can’t relate really. Sometimes he wonders if he was drawn so easily to Adam, because there’s nothing he could fear. They didn’t work out before, and the end of their relationship back then came heartlessly, and was visible from miles away. Their relationship was only a thread of responsibility and interdependence, and Shiro feels glad in hindsight, that it tore.

There’s no way he’d fall in love with Adam again. He likes his personality, yes, but that’s about it. He’s good for a fuck and as a distraction, and that’s about the same thing Adam can say about him.

For now, Shiro looks forward to the coming year, when finally, Keith will go off-planet together, and only come back to Earth together. The thought leaves him happy, but he also realizes that meeting up with Adam wouldn’t be as easy. They could be a year out there and not come back. 

Atlas growls in his head, and Shiro leaves out a sigh. All the thoughts about Adam remind him that he could message him again, after not hearing from him for a while.

 **< Shiro, 21:03 Utena Belt Standard Time>** _Miss you dick already_

Shiro doesn’t have feelings for Adam, and won’t ever have them. But he enjoys the company, enjoys that they can look past all the ugly things they said to each other once. He definitely misses him too, but he also can live well without him, he thinks.

The answer comes a day later, and even though Shiro has luck that Veronica cannot see the message on his phone, he starts choking a little on his breakfast. It’s short and reminds Shiro instantly on what he likes about this goddamn stinky bastard.

 **< Adam, 8:10 Earth Pacific Time Zone>** _*your_

Shiro coughs the bite that was stuck in his throat into a tissue, and puts his phone away. He won’t reply, and instead decides to simply visit him two weeks from now, when he’s back on Earth.

Instead of waiting for weeks until Shiro’s pride has vanished enough for him to meet Adam and accept that he’s, for a fact, feeling lonely, he seeks him out right away.

It’s maybe a little irrational, Shiro reckons, to just go directly to him; after all Adam never said he was exclusively meeting Shiro and no one else, but his body brings him before that thought crosses him, and it feels stupid to not simply knock when he’s already there.

Adam opens the door after a moment and looks surprised at a beaming Shiro.

“I brought food,” Shiro says, for a lack of anything else. He feels like he needs to pay Adam back for every time he came here and was moping around so much that Adam saw the need to care for him. His eyes search past Adam in the background and then flick back to him. “I could have called,” he says as if that would explain everything.

Only then he notices that Adam looks a little off. He’s in his sweats even though it’s noon, and his hair which is usually neatly kempt, looks tousled. Now Shiro really worries that there’s someone else in Adam’s flat, and he shouldn’t have stopped by.

“I can go,” he offers, but promptly gets pulled in by Adam. 

“What’s up with you?” he asks and gives him a kiss, and then swiftly goes into the house. “You’ll need a pan or a pot?” His voice comes from the kitchen. 

Shiro enters, puts the bags of groceries on the island. “I was excited,” he explains before he can think about it, and then immediately questions himself. Excited about what? Cooking for Adam?

“One pot, two pans,” he then replies.

It clatters loudly when Adam takes all the requested things from his cupboard and puts it on the kitchen island, he then turns around and folds his arms in front of him. 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks again, because Adam, who usually hides his emotions well behind a wall, behaves completely differently.

Instead of replying, Adam musters him. He searches for something in Shiro’s eyes, and when he doesn’t find it, he sighs.

“I’m fine,” he says. Then, “You were excited for me? What’s _that_ about, Takashi?” 

In an instant, Shiro feels his cheeks collecting heat. But he plays it down. “Food on the Atlas is just kinda, you know. It’s always overcooked. And you’ve got a nice kitchen.” His voice gets higher somewhere in the middle, obviously, because it’s a flat-out lie, and Shiro hopes deeply that Hunk, who trained all of the Atlas kitchen personnel as a second job, just because he wanted to, will forgive him. And also, _never_ hear of this.

Adam nods, either straight up gobbling up the lie Shiro just told him, or dismissing it completely. Sometimes it's hard to tell. 

“Do you need help?”

Shiro eyes him. He looks really tired. “I’m fine by myself.” Then Shiro turns to gather a cutting board and a few utensils. 

He feels Adam hover behind him, then take a breath. “I’ll go lay down for a minute, then,” he says. “Wake me up if you need something.”

Shiro nods and hears Adam’s footsteps fade and the door go. While he prepares the vegetable and the noodles, he hums a little to himself, sends a message to Keith that he arrived on Earth, and doesn’t wake Adam, even when he’s finished cooking. He takes a plate for himself and puts the rest into the oven.

Hours later, Adam wakes again, tumbles sleep-driven into the kitchen without a word. It looks kind of dangerous, and Shiro hurries after him, fills him a plate and carries it to the dining room. Adam sits and eats slowly and still looks so out of it, that Shiro just lets him be without a comment. They are usually teasing and joking, but today feels like a grieve reminder of their relationship in its end-stage.

While Adam eats, Shiro’s eyes travel around the dining room, that has gotten some life in it since the last time he got there. There are a few wooden table mats set to the side of the table, and a white piece of cloth with an empty vase in the middle. When Shiro looks into the next room, the living room, he even spots a new TV. He hides his surprise, because Adam was never fond of watching movies or sitting on a couch the whole evening.

“Shiro,” Adam says softly, drawing Shiro’s attention to him. “You’re not getting als—you’re not getting sick of me, are you?”

In all those years, even when they were still dating, Adam never said something so vulnerable. It shocks Shiro in a way that makes it impossible for him to reply. Surely, he scolds himself right after, Adam too is capable of change. 

“If anything, I’ve got sick of you years ago,” Shiro replies in another heartbeat, and Adam gurgles an ugly laugh. It tells him that things are alright between them, and this isn’t something related to them. 

_I’m scared we’re not okay?_ Shiro thinks with sobering clarity. 

“I wouldn’t be here cooking food, would I?” he adds. 

Adam smiles for the first time since he opened his door to Shiro, and looks at the pot dish on his plate. “No,” he says, taking another bite. “You wouldn’t.”

Later, they go to bed, and Shiro doesn’t mind— he likes sharing body heat in many ways, even though he’s nervous about the intimacy. In the end, he’s the one who crowds Adam close against him, getting flashbacks of other times— diagnose-related, unhappier ones— and softly kisses Adam’s forehead and nuzzles his nose into his hair until they fall asleep.

Unlike Keith, he doesn’t feel this betrayal of his body learning upon feelings for other people than his husband, but the betrayal of his own body falling for someone who hurt him in the past like Adam did.

They both hurt each other, a lot. And even though some part of Shiro feels like he healed in some parts, this confusion rips some other wounds fresh open.

But Shiro has learned to not pull back from his own confusion, and against his flight reflex, stays for three days. Unlike before, Adam doesn’t ask about Keith once, and it’s a detail that wouldn’t have come to awareness for Shiro otherwise. It’s just normal, because Adam knows they are married, and he knows Shiro loves Keith, and he’s a polite human being. But this time, Adam doesn’t ask once in three days, and for some reason, that surprises Shiro.

“Keith’s doing well,” he says on the fourth day at breakfast. Adam went back to his usual self since day two, but he looks completely thrown off at that piece of information that Shiro gives him, and it makes him wonder. 

“Thanks,” Adam says for some reason. And then, instead of doing the usual; asking Shiro to say ‘hi’ to Keith from him, he simply continues eating his oatmeal.

##### ________________

This time around, they meet up fairly more often than the last time, and Shiro slowly gains the certainty that Adam must have a) seen someone else and b) broke up with them. Shiro doesn’t feel possessiveness or jealousy, only surprise. He wonders why Adam hasn’t told him, but then again reminds himself that they never agreed that he had to talk about anything outside of their arrangement.

“Glad to see you doing better,” Shiro comments once, in earnest, but Adam shrugs at first, then deflects.

“Don’t think you can distract me with sweet-talk, Golden Boy,” he says, throwing a basketball from too wide a distance and still gets the fucking point. 

“I still cannot believe how you decided on the teaching path,” Shiro laughs. “You’re way better at aiming than I am.”

Adam comes closer, unexpectedly, and hooks his arms around him. He wasn’t someone for PDA back then, and it astounds Shiro that he is now. 

But suddenly, he draws back again, as if he realizes a mistake he made. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Unhurriedly, Shiro pulls him back and kisses him, long and deep, and Adam slowly melts in his arm, smiles when they part. He doesn’t say it, but Shiro knows they both know that they’ve reached a tipping point they both fear to overstep. 

Additionally, something about playing basketball and kissing right next to the basketball hoops, and especially kissing _Adam_ , revives a bunch of memories of the good, the exciting, the fresh between them. Luckily, Shiro’s brain blocks out any thought beyond that.

In the evening, they shower together, and Shiro makes himself comfortable between Adam’s legs, eagerly putting all attention on sucking his cock and teasing his balls. Shiro falls asleep that night, not without a message to Keith that despite being well-entertained on Earth, he still misses him, and a cocky reply, that Shiro needs to share the details the next time Keith finds him. To Shiro, the imagination of sharing some details about him and Adam while he fucks Keith excites him, and he makes a mental note for the next time they have a few days off together.

Even though the promise of seeing Keith again— they’ll meet on the Atlas this time, because him and Krolia will have to pass the same quadrant at the same time— makes Shiro happy, he treads the day he leaves Earth, or Adam’s house, again. 

After the first week, he doesn’t return to the shack. Too weird it feels to be alone there without Keith, and too sad it feels to sleep alone, without someone next to him. Also, and he struggles to accept it just like that, he simply misses Adam when he’s not with him.

Adam seems to feel the same way, at least Shiro interprets it like that. It’s not like he outright tells Shiro, and Shiro knows it’s because he’s being both cautious and respectful. But in the way that Adam holds him a little too long and kisses him before he flies off, back to the Atlas, Shiro reads into, and he knows that there’s something he might need to tell Keith soon.

There’s obviously the possibility that Keith won’t accept that Shiro has feelings, especially if they are for Adam. They both know that they will never be replaceable for each other, but that won’t slim the chance that Keith might feel uncomfortable if Shiro ends up having feelings for someone he even wanted to marry before. Shiro also wonders what happened to Keith’s feelings, and how things developed on his side, with the person he was seeing. There are many things to talk about, and so little time for them to see each other.

Shiro arrives in a little under 6 hours of superdrive with his own spaceship, and walks the Atlas’ corridors in search of Keith. He asks Atlas— who stays entirely unhelpful, getting distracted and excited on their own— and doesn’t see when Keith practically runs into him.

Then he feels the strong arms hugging around his middle, and sees the black tousle of hair against his chest, and a wave of emotions runs over him.

“I missed you,” Keith sighs, almost sobs, and Shiro feels close to sobbing too. 

“Missed you too. Love you, babe,” he murmurs into his hair, plastering his head with kisses. His heart clenches in his ribcage, and his stomach turns because it hurts so much. They’ll only have two days; it’s so cruel Shiro is ready to resign here and now, unable to wait for another few months.

They kiss in the corridor, ugly, needy kisses, and Shiro couldn’t give a fuck even if someone passed by. “Where’s Krolia?” he asks in between, when he comes up for air. Keith hogs him like a koala hogs a tree.

“Said she’ll see us at breakfast if we’ll be there.” Keith can barely add the ‘Romelle says ‘hi’’ that comes out between giggles over Shiro kissing him everywhere.

“Perfect,” Shiro pulls back, takes Keith’s hand, and pulls him toward his room. Keith goes easy, willingly, overtakes him, really, and reaches the door first. It opens with a swift wave of Shiro’s hand at the side.

They are all hands-over-each-other-kissing-every-spot-occupied with each other, moaning, gasping, laughing into every movement and touch. Shiro sucks him off while holding him down, and Keith babbles the highest praise in a stream that simply won’t break off anytime soon. As Keith needs time to recharge, Shiro teases his whole body, tells what the stranger without face— Adam— does to him when Keith isn’t there, and makes his eyes roll back from the arousal the images send him. Keith tells him he’ll fuck Shiro exactly like that other guy does, even better, as soon as he’s hard, and holds onto that promise deliciously. He holds him down with a strength that Shiro didn’t know from him before, but mirrors how Adam holds and fucks Shiro like he demands him to do.

The swirl of emotions, and the high in which Keith fucks and pumps him comes to a prolonged end, and the orgasm that hits them both makes them unable to talk for a while.

Keith plops down into the cushions, hands over his eyes, legs and arms spread out over the bed. Shiro does the same. They both stare at the ceiling, take their time to gain enough oxygen, before Shiro turns to Keith, and Keith curls into him. 

The confusion from before, about Adam still burns on his tongue, but today is reserved for him and Keith, and everything else, they’ll have a whole day for tomorrow. 

“Fuck,” Keith sighs and kisses Shiro’s hairy chest, nuzzles into him like that. “I haven’t fucked you that good in so long.”

Shiro gasps a laugh and leans down to kiss Keith. “Well, you caught up on your duty. For now.” 

When Keith looks up, he meets him with a challenging look. “For now?” He repeats and dives down to kiss and bite Shiro’s abs.

“Have mercy,” Shiro cackles and shoves him away playfully, and into the cushions, lies on Keith instead, caging him.

But Keith only grins a viscous grin. “No,” he declares then, and rolls his hips up against Shiro’s.

They skip breakfast and lie in bed, sharing whatever snacks Keith finds in Shiro's kitchen. He wears his uniform like a trophy with nothing under it and walks around the room with a bag of chips.

Shiro lies on bed, feeling drained but comfortable, massages over his chest and his legs and watches Keith. He loves when he's wearing parts of his uniform, especially when he's naked and the tip of his dick is just visible. 

"I won't let you go," Shiro says and palms over his soft dick without any arousal. Keith turns to him, pops another chip into his mouth and grins. 

"Oh, I won't go." It's an obvious lie, one Shiro would love to believe. 

"Tell me again why I decided to work here, and not together with you?" 

"I think the exact words were: 'We were only friends and I didn't want you to think I'm following you everywhere.'" 

"Wow," Shiro sighs, "what an idiot." 

"And then," Keith says and crawls back into bed, "we thought we liked to do our own thing."

Shiro’s eyes light up. "Two idiots, then."

Keith cackles a laugh, and then there's more crackling from the bag of chips. Shiro’s content like this, lying there together with legs intertwined, feeling Keith’s hair tickle against his skin. He feels happy, satisfied, and so in love with the amazing person right beside him. He feels like he can trust him with anything, with his life.

That’s why he doesn’t think for too long when he simply speaks what’s on his mind.

"Hey Keith," Shiro starts. "In a completely hypothetical scenario where we'd dated before Kerberos," Keith's eyes go wide, "would you have agreed when I told you I'll go on the mission?" 

Shiro almost expected him to shout 'of course!' but Keith takes his time to think. Whatever he takes into consideration, he doesn't take it lightly. He wipes his greasy fingers on a cushion— rude— and puts them up to support his chin.

"I think I would have.”

Shiro exhales.

“No one can hold you back," Keith adds, and reaches out to brush a few strands out of Shiro's face. Shiro wonders if he would have gone if it was Keith, the same age he is now. He knows the answer, but pushes away the thought quickly.

"But if you," Keith swallows, and his tone has turned darker, "if you had died, I would have never forgiven myself." 

They hold each other's gaze for a long time, and it takes everything for Shiro to not just spill everything. That there's still some resentment in him about Adam who didn't want him to go, who put an ultimatum where the band-aid for a broken relationship was. That Adam had all his firsts, and maybe will always hold an ambiguous place in his heart. That a part of Shiro still feels a crippling shame for rejecting the future of Adam as his caregiver in the past. And that, back then, with the memory of hospitals and a fog of depression and pain, he thought he'd rather die in the stars to live and see the day where his body stops working, and Adam by his side. 

But Shiro— and he knows it’s his worst habit— holds it all in.

"We were both different back then," Keith says softly, breaking Shiro out of his spiraling trail, "and it's easy to say I would have acted a certain way. Back then, I was a teen, you were my hero, and I would have agreed on almost everything you decided for yourself." 

Shiro looks at him, open and vulnerable, and reaches up to Keith's face, stroking a single curl behind his ear. All the crumbs around his pretty lips make Shiro smile.

"Thanks for being honest with me."

Keith searches for something in his eyes, and it almost feels like they've gained a mutual understanding. Shiro wonders if he knows.

"Thanks for sharing your worries with me."

After a while of simply lying, living, a small snort comes from Keith, and his husband has fallen asleep again. Shiro looks at every small crease and every feature in his husband's face, places a soft kiss on his forehead so he won't wake him. 

Then, with some focused concentration, he navigates the Altean arm to grab his phone, and scrolls through his chats until he finds Adam's. 

His thumb hovers long over the keyboard before he finally types a message. 

**< Shiro, 2:31 Ontiron Quadrant>** Looking forward to fall

The reply comes promptly.

 **< Adam, 12:12 Earth Pacific Time Zone>** Why’d you wanna fall? 

**< Shiro, 2:32 Ontiron Quadrant>** _Adam_

Adam doesn't reply anymore, and Shiro wonders if he plans on deflecting on every nice thing Shiro will say to him, or if he's just navigating how they will stay uninvolved fuck buddies. Both are fine, Shiro tells himself. And then, because it’s so fine, he tells himself again. 

Shiro puts the phone away and looks back at Keith, places a few more kisses on his face and hair, and draws him closer. 

And while he rests with him, Shiro thinks about the right words to say when he wakes.

It’s evening when Keith wakes. There’s a bubble of drool bigger than Kosmo’s next to his cushion, and he’s hogging Shiro’s Altean arm. Shiro himself sits at the desk with a single light bulb on, reading over something with his glasses on. 

“ _Rude_ ,” Keith mutters and cuddles the Altean arm closer. 

“You’re awake,” Shiro says with a short look to him, then scans over another paper, before he all slots it to the side. “We can go get dinner in a minute.”

Keith nods, eyes heavy with slumber as he starts searching for clothes to dress. “Babe, not my uniform,” Shiro complains, but Keith flips him off, because he’s just that charming. Especially when he just woke. 

“Everyone already knows we bone,” Keith gives as an additional explanation, but because he’s a good husband, too, he searches for his own shirt by going through all the clothes on the floor. Shiro cackles and helps him, finds it first and helps Keith put it on. Together they struggle, share kisses, and manage somehow to get to the cafeteria to finally get food.

Later, they sit on the bed, clothes off again, and Keith is scrolling through his datapad, face wearing a troubled expression that Shiro doesn’t quite get. But he himself scrolls through his own messages, and leaves Keith to himself for the time being. There’s a message, “They love the fresh fruit on Zolenko!”, and a picture from Allura, showing the mice doing little tricks. In the second picture, Pidge is with her, and they are both grinning into the camera. Shiro smiles, and sends a few words back. Pidge, since she’s done her duty with appearing in Allura’s pic, has sent nothing, but there’s a message from Hunk and one from Lance, too. As well one from Veronica, even though Veronica sees Shiro every day when he’s working, and knows that Keith is on the Atlas. 

It shows a single line and a sole, very knowing ‘( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)’.

Before Shiro decides to either ignore the message or send the lenny face right back at her, Keith clears his throat and puts away his datapad.

“I made a decision,” he says when Shiro looks up. “I’m going to see, uh, the guy again.”

Shiro’s eyebrows raise almost to the hairline, and he puts the datapad away to draw Keith close. “You haven’t seen him in between?”

“I had to sort my feelings out first,” Keith replies, voice soft. He curls into Shiro’s side, hand on his chest. He softly touches the skin there, before he reaches out to slowly guide his chin and Shiro’s eyes to him.

Shiro stares at him, rapidly thinking. He must look shocked, he reckons, but too late.

“Is it, uh. Is it not okay with you?” 

“No,” Shiro hurries to say, shakes his head as an emphasis. “No. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Keith asks and shows a little smile. And just like that, Shiro’s eyes and mouth go soft. 

A ping informs Keith of another message. He reaches for the datapad, glances at the message and smiles before he puts it away. Then he looks at Shiro expectantly again. 

“Thinking about what?” Keith asks, and Shiro wishes he wasn’t such a coward.

_It’s Adam. It’s him, isn’t it?_

“Nothing, really,” Shiro says first, then “that you’re beautiful,” because it’s less of a lie. Keith looks beautiful, glowing, really. He’s happy with his decision.

Shiro hugs him and sinks his face into Keith’s hair, rubs his stubbly chin into it. Keith cackles and pushes him away, but lets himself fall into Shiro’s embrace just a minute later. 

“I don’t want to go tonight.” Keith’s words tickle against his chest, but Shiro holds him even closer. 

“Next year,” Shiro says and wonders if they will be able to pull it through the way they planned. “We’ll be together out there.”

“Yeah.” It’s a soft sigh only, and with more hesitation than before. Shiro doesn’t doubt that next year, Keith will happily go with him. There’s something else on his mind.

##### ________________

##### ________________

Keith never comes by unannounced, so when Adam opens the door and sees him leaning at the frame, wearing pilot specs and a huge grin, he just stares. 

“Hello,” Keith whistles, arms folded and— is that a leather jacket?— looks Adam up and down. 

“What are you doing here?” Adam deadpans, and Keith’s stance immediately falters. 

“Uh. Uhm.”

Suddenly, he looks embarrassed; brushes his bangs back and stands upright, before he takes a grip on himself. “I wanted to ask if you want to go on a picnic.”

“A date,” Adam says as a matter-of-fact. Keith’s brows furrow. 

“Yeah,” he says, a little impatient. “A date.”

Now Adam’s the one leaning against the door and folding his arms. “Huh,” he says, pushes his glasses back. “Interesting.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“I can come. Have to let you jump through some hoops, first.” Despite his words, Adam smiles.

Keith comes a step closer, eyebrows drawn together. He didn’t think it would be easy-easy, but at least a little easier. Then again— 

“I have thought about it,” he starts.

“I can see that, otherwise you wouldn’t be on my doorstep.”

Keith comes another step closer. “You deserve someone who likes you.”

For a second, Adam is speechless. Keith is close, his expression sincere. Adam knew he missed him, and assumed Keith maybe didn’t care.

“I think so too,” Adam agrees. 

“Well,” Keith continues, pauses, rubs over the back of his neck. “Wow. I’m bad at this.”

 _Worse than Takashi,_ Adam thinks. He shrugs, but one thing he has to give him. At least he’s getting some amusement out of it. 

Before he says another word, Keith takes Adam’s hand, pulls him outside to the front porch and stairs, and sits down first. Adam goes with him, and the warmth of Keith’s hand lets his heart flutter for a moment.

“I told you I needed some time to think,” Keith starts, “I’m sorry I was making myself scarce. I worked through some stuff.”

“You don’t owe me an apology, Keith,” Adam says. He felt it, when Keith was suddenly gone as quick out of his life as he came into it, but then again, Adam had kept his expectations low. They’ve never talked if there was any possibility that this between them could be anything but a temporary thing.

But then again, Adam liked that there was someone who went to all the stupid, overpriced restaurants with him, he liked Keith being Keith— sometimes heated, sometimes soft, sometimes the spitting image of his husband. Adam exactly knew what he was getting himself into, or at least he thought he did.

“I know,” Keith relents. “But I still want to apologize. I, uh—” he pauses, brushes more of his hair out of the way, because it’s so boisterous in his face with every strong blow of today’s wind. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

He looks at Adam, waiting, curious, wondering. Adam feels the pressure under those open and vulnerable eyes, and realizes how much things tend to hurt Adam without him knowing. His throat is dry, while his eyes feel suddenly watery.

“I still don’t think it was needed,” Adam insists, and wipes at his eyes. 

It’s weird that Keith cares so much for him, and wants to make things right. Adam can’t help but feeling a little bitter at that. But it’s not fair for Keith. Keith, who’s currently pressing Adam’s hand which he is still holding, who looks into his face, wondering what he did wrong.

“Where’s that great date supposed to happen?” Adam finally chokes and gets a grip on himself. Leave it to this wild person— or rather, handsome young man— to make him feel.

At that, Keith grins vibrantly, and all the worry leaves out of his wrinkled brows. 

##### ________________

Keith promised a picnic, and there is one. Adam knew Keith was going for sophisticated, but didn’t know how. He bought wine in a box, cheese but forgot to bring a cheese knife, grapes but unwashed. Adam doesn’t comment on anything but with only the rise of an eyebrow when Keith cuts the cheese with his Blade of Marmora dagger, and laughs out loud when Keith says Adam shouldn’t judge him. He says he tries to make things right too, and Adam believes him, however ‘right’ is supposed to look like.

They don’t wait for the stars but stay for the sun warming their skin and the wind blowing, pulling their clothes and hair. They start an honest attempt of having sex right here under the open sky where no one else will see or hear them but the birds, but the wind is too windy, the sand around them twirls everywhere, and the pull their clothes back on with red cheeks and wide smiles on their face.

“I like you,” Keith says at the end of the picnic, because he would be like this; message Adam that he needs time and cut the contact, then check up on him once in a while, then turn up and tell Adam he likes him out of the blue. 

Adam wondered if Shiro had his hands in this; if they discussed their relationship to Adam and both thought they needed a break and focused on their marriage instead.

It wouldn’t have been a surprise to Adam, or maybe it would have.

Instead he kisses Keith good night, still thinking about what to do with that ‘I like you’ and with feelings of his own. Adam takes his favorite, thickest book and goes to bed early, puts his brain to sleep and his emotions too, because all of it, it’s too much for one day to think about.

That night, Keith stays in the shack, looks at the stars together with Kosmo and doesn’t feel as alone anymore out there.

_** <Keith, 22:45 Earth Pacific Time Zone>** Maybe I can introduce a boyfriend next time we’re both on Earth _

_**< Shiro, 10:11 Orion 5th Quad., Eastern Time Zone>** You’ve always been quicker than I in getting your act together _

_**< Shiro, 10:12 Orion 5th Quad., Eastern Time Zone>** Love you, husband _

_**< Keith, 22:48 Earth Pacific Time Zone>** Love you too. _

_**< Keith, 22:48 Earth Pacific Time Zone>** You’ll get there. _

Life happens, and neither Shiro nor Keith get back to Earth until winter. 

Every day, Shiro realizes disgruntled that he does miss Adam a bit, even more blatant so when he knows he’s missing Keith. Shiro just misses people, and their warmth, and their body next to him. Misses a partner to talk, misses Keith.

As Keith is off on a special mission in a whole other quadrant, he’s sometimes without working signal for weeks. When Shiro hears from him, it’s one or two short messages, just saying the essentials. 

_I’m good. Love you. Eat your veggies or something._

Shiro replies, but that kind of scarce contact lets him feel loneliness stronger than not getting any messages from him. At least he knows Keith is well and not in danger.

When Shiro returns to Earth for a holiday, he’s glad that Veronica is off during the same time. The first few days he avoids Adam’s house like a plague; on the Atlas, Shiro was able to push back any thoughts about facing Adam in favor of prioritizing work-related issues, but now he doesn’t possess that same security net. So when Veronica asks if he wants to check out a new gym in town, because the Garrison’s gyms might have everything they need but also remind of work, Shiro eagerly agrees. 

They spot each other during weight left, take an aerobic class, gossip after the much needed shower, and get milkshakes and pizza afterward. 

It’s freeing how they laugh about everything and nothing, talk about Acxa’s lease for an apartment around the corner, talk about piercings and tattoos, if they’d like or would get some. Shiro gets milkshake in his nose when Veronica jokes that the Garrison would certainly be okay to get a tattoo so long it’s something honorable, like Iverson’s face on her biceps. When she hands him a tissue and grins at the mess he’s made, Shiro realizes that this afternoon was everything he needed to get a clear head again.

“Hey Shiro,” she says and cocks her head when they wave each other goodbye, “if you’ve got boy-trouble, you can tell me.”

“You too,” Shiro answers in an instant. 

They part ways, and only later Shiro understands how genuine that offer is, so when he arrives home, at the shack, he immediately sends a ‘thanks’ to her.

The rest of the evening, he lays in bed with his datapad and watches a show, even gets a beer, and thinks of Adam, and wonders if they are even friends.

##### ________________

##### ________________

Shiro is someone who just knocks at one’s door unannounced, so when Adam opens his door, he’s not surprised to see him. The way he’s leaning against the doorframe without putting up any act makes Adam smile against any better judgement, and when Shiro looks surprised at that, Adam urges his expression back to a neutral one.

“Hey,” Shiro greets with a hesitant smile. 

“Hey,” Adam says. “Come in?” he adds after a second, and Shiro steps past him into the flat.

“You look good,” Shiro comments as he slowly walks to the kitchen and gets them both a glass of water. “How are you?”

“Good,” Adam says, curiously following him. “What’s up with you?”

That’s how they are. Whenever Shiro thinks he can get around things, Adam gets straight to the point. He knows something’s up. 

“Let’s sit down,” Shiro says and takes his seat first. It’s been going on too long to ignore, and he feels like Adam has been pulled into something he doesn’t have much control over.

“Is this about Keith?” Adam asks slowly. “Have you guys decided that you…” Adam trails off. Decided what, he wonders. Break off their arrangement with Adam?

“So you didn’t know.” Shiro isn’t surprised. It wouldn’t be like Adam to just never mention that he both saw Shiro and Keith. “You didn’t know we didn’t tell each other,” he clarifies.

On the outside, Adam just looks frozen in his place. But it isn’t his composed state. “You didn’t—”

“Think again,” Shiro says and almost breaks into a laugh. “Cheating? Me and Keith?” Adam visibly relaxes at that. “No. What I said to you the first time was the truth. Keith and I just agreed that we wouldn’t tell names.”

“Oh,” Adam says. Then, there’s pause. “Oh,” he says again. 

The tension slowly falls from Shiro’s shoulder. “Yeah.” He takes a sip from his water. “I’m just surprised we really didn’t know for that long.” He laughs, but his throat is dry. He still hasn’t thought what all of that will mean for each of them.

“But that’s not why you’re here.”

Shiro averts his gaze. “I’m not.” Adam doesn’t reply, so he simply continues. “Keith and I have decided to leave our jobs next year. We can’t do the whole long-distance-thing anymore.”

Adam pushes his glasses back, after they slipped down an inch. “But you’ll get back to Earth eventually?”

Shiro bites his lip. “That’s why I’m here. We don’t plan to.”

“Takashi—”

“We’ll be further away for some time. We come to Earth for… several reasons, but we’ve both felt worn out because of that. We wanted to just... travel around the universe and take on whatever jobs we could get. We want to—”

Shiro doesn’t mean to sound so excited, but it’s been in the making for so long that he can’t help glowing at the thought. It’s too late when he realizes he’s saying too much—

“—explore the universe. We’ve _always_ wanted to go together and—”

“Leave,” Adam interrupts him, stone cold. His hand shakes, and he stares at the table surface. 

At once, it’s quiet, inside and outside the room. Winter is slowly coming, and even though the temperatures don’t drop too low, the change is noticeable; especially when Shiro comes here every couple months. 

Shiro stands up wordlessly, waits for Adam to say something, but the brown-haired man continues to stare at the clean wooden table surface and doesn’t look up. 

Before he leaves, Shiro is unable to say he’s sorry. He leaves and goes to the shack, lies down and stares at the wooden blanks holding the roof together. The most pressing thought— that he should apologize to Adam— he pushes away quickly. How’s he supposed to tell Keith? Shiro’s intention was never to complicate things. He wanted to let Adam in on their plans, to save him the disappointment when he finds out that they leave next year.

In the first hour, Shiro’s still the good guy in his own scenario, but he slowly comes to terms with having majorly fucked up despite his good intentions. He promptly sends a message to Keith, apologizing in advance for maybe making things difficult with Adam; there’s no reply but an alert that the message wasn’t sent. Shiro drops his head back on the pillow and leaves out a big sigh.

He tries to dig deep in himself for a solution— a way to make all three of them happy— but there’s no easy way about it. First, he has to make things better with Adam, if Adam is still willing to talk to him.

Shiro falls asleep and wakes to a message from Matt and calls him immediately. It might be prone to his own sleepiness that he talks the issue out with him, or that he doesn’t want to rely on Veronica’s and his work-and-personal-relationship too much by pouring his heart out to her. She does have some experience in the dating-and-befriending-multiple-people-department but she never seems to struggle with the kind of issues that lay at Shiro’s hands. Maybe because she doesn’t date exes.

As far as Shiro knows, Matt is the only other person who made the friends-with-benefits-thing work, and even though he’s a goofball most of the time, he has some good advice.

“You’re stupid, Shiro,” he says. Shiro almost objects, but shuts his mouth fairly quickly when Matt continues. “You think _Keith_ is the emotional one.”

“He is—” Shiro starts, but gets promptly interrupted.

“And so are you. You might have put your emotions on the backburner for so long you don’t even realize when you’re emotionally investigated in something. Name me one reason why you seeked out a thing with _Adam_ of all people.”

Shiro hesitates for a moment. “Because he was there.”

“Charming,” Matt snorts through his nose. “That can’t be all, you dick.” He says it lovingly, so Shiro does his best to not feel offended. 

Instead, he tries to fish out a reason from the jumble in his brain that’s good and true enough to suffice.

“ _And—_?” Matt teases. Shiro can hear him drum with his fingertips against his table.

“I don’t know,” Shiro deflects finally, and earns a loud sigh from Matt. 

“I’ll tell you, then,” he mutters. “I don’t know if you remember the Kerberos mission flight, but I remember it very clearly. Six months being packed together with you and dad in a three-men-rocket was a horrible experience on its own, even without your constant wailing.”

“I didn’t—”

“Oh Shiro, Shiro _, Shiro,_ ” Matt quiets him. “You were done with Adam at this point, but that break-up? Your excitement for the mission might have triumphed over your sadness, but it wasn’t like you were completely unaffected. You planned to marry—”

“I know—” Shiro grits out between clenched teeths. He’s pretty sure he cannot remember himself wailing, though.

“And it’s okay? You were sad? That’s completely normal. But you tried to go back to normal quickly, and neither you nor Adam have ever spoken about what happened. Heck, I didn’t even know at first. And we spent six months together. You knew really everything about my past relationships!”

Matt… has a point, Shiro disgruntled realizes. Adam ended everything back then, and Shiro had his part in that. He didn’t want to talk to him either.

“And why did I choose Adam?” Shiro prompts

“Huh?”

“You insisted I chose Adam for a reason.”

“Oh yeah.” Matt scratches his head. “You like him.”

Simple as that. 

_Oh, he caught him._ Matt knows him too well.

“No,” Shiro says in an instant. Because that would be too easy, right? He doesn’t— he hasn’t—

“I love Keith,” he argues and knows it’s a stupid thing to say. No one ever challenged that, and yet he feels protective of their relationship. “In all those years, before Adam and I met again, I never thought once about—”

“That’s fine, Shiro,” Matt interjects. “You didn’t like him for some time, didn’t dislike him, really. But now you do. You like him _again_.”

If Shiro wasn’t already lying in bed, he would have taken a seat. 

“It’s okay if you do,” his friend adds. Of course Matt would be right with this. Not that he’s _ever_ right with anything else that often.

When Shiro doesn’t say anything for a while, Matt repeats it once, then another time. For a few minutes, Shiro just listens to Matt’s steady breath, and his own heart beating.

“It’s stupid,” he finally replies. “What would I be afraid of?”

Matt hums. “Hey, understanding you’re scared is that first solid step. Congrats. _Breathe_.”

“Matt,” Shiro laughs, and finally gets up, datapad pressed between his ear and shoulder as he fills a kettle with water. 

“Maybe it’s whatever made you break-up first that makes you scared?”

Shiro hums, balancing the water kettle and a single cup to the low couch table in their shack, and gets out a bag of dried fruits and meats. Not the most luxuriant meal, but it will give him some energy.

“I need to talk to him, I think,” he says and starts chewing on a dried fig while his tea brews. “If he’ll ever talk to me again.”

“He dates your husband,” Matt argues, “he might eventually.”

“Oh yeah,” Shiro sighs and watches the tea leaves fall to the bottom of the cup. “That. I hope I didn’t ruin that too.”

“Just a short question, Shiro.” Shiro stops chewing his fig and hums for Matt to continue. “What outcome do you hope for? Do you want Adam in your life? Do you want him in Keith’s life but not yours? Do you want ‘uncomplicated’?”

Shiro stares at the teacup, the figs, the bag of dried meat. “Does it matter what I want?” Shiro doesn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That’s fine,” Matt reassures.

“I only know that I,” Shiro’s voice gets small. “I—I don’t want Adam and me to work out because the sickness is manageable now.”

Matt stays quiet for a long while, and Shiro can tell he’s thinking. He wonders if it was too much to say, too unbearable to know.

“I hear you,” Matt pushes. “You’re not the same now, and he isn’t either. I think—I think it would be good to talk, even if the result would be you both becoming, uh mutual-respectful strangers. Or if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.”

Shiro both wants Adam in and out of his life, wants to forget and cherish the good memories they share. “Yeah,” Shiro replies finally to Matt. “Thanks, for, you know. Everything.”

“Don’t sweat your pants,” Matt replies. “I’m gonna leave you alone okay? Pidge is calling on the other line. But feel free to share juicy details whenever.”

That draws one last laugh from Shiro. “I will. Say Pidge ‘Hi’ from me.”

The call ends, and Shiro is alone again. The shack lies quiet, and Shiro realizes he brewed the tea for too long, gets up to brew a new cup, and sits outside on the porch as soon as that’s done.

While he stares into the blue, cloudless sky, he thinks about the times as a Garrison student, as a know-it-all teen, as a young guy obsessing over his first love. First crush, first time hand-holding, first kiss. Adam possesses all of his firsts, while Shiro has all of his. 

The swirling sun over the sky, the first time Shiro really looked at someone else and found his heart beating uncontrollably, and his own oh-so helpless that it’s nauseating. Shiro remembers that day where for the first time, he realized he’s in love— a big word for a sixteen year old who knows both too much and nothing about this world— and it was a sunny day like this.

It was when brown gentle eyes looked into his, when he knew he had something for people who were witty and bold, and who cared for him more than he thought it was possible. Shiro was bolder back then too, less afraid of any life consequences—

and desperately in love with his flying partner, Adam.

Shiro closes his eyes, blocks out the sun from his vision, only feels the hot steam from his tea rise to the sky with a gentle brush against his face. 

It makes no sense to dwell on old feelings, Shiro thinks. Being in love once doesn’t mean you’ll have to be in love later. 

After finishing his cup he goes back inside, pulls an old leather jacket out of a pile and throws it on before he walks around the shack to the old but sturdy hoverbikes that both Keith and he had parked there. Shiro explores the endless desert, watches the clouds pass by, and thinks about his first engagement, thinks about their first major fight and their last— and lastly broods about how differently his words must have hit Adam the other night.

 _What do you want out of this_ , Shiro wonders as he watches the sunset and misses Keith. _What do you want out of this?_ He wonders and shoots a long overdue message to Adam, asking him to talk.

He drives back under the starry sky, meteor showers raining left and right from him. His message stays unanswered, the dishes stay dirty, the coyotes stay close to the shack howling this night, as if they knew what Shiro was going through more than he does.

In the morning, there's a new alert on his phone and a new message. 

The alert says that his message finally went through, and the new message is from Keith.

_** <Keith, [device unable to detect region]>** On my way back to the BOM HQ. What happened between Adam and you? Maybe we can talk; got a few days off soon. Love you _

Keith doesn’t seem surprised, or maybe he’s too tired from his mission to wonder why Shiro talked to Adam in the first place. Then again, Keith isn’t dumb either.

In order to not spiral into a bad place mentally, Shiro calls Veronica, who seems always up to work-out at the gym together. Shiro keeps his own issues short, but eagerly listens to Veronica talk about Romelle, and then about her brother a bit; it is a nice distraction, and makes him genuinely happy to see Veronica so happy. They stop by Acxa’s flat but not in order to meet Acxa; she was off-planet just like Keith, therefore it’s just the two of them sitting in front of the TV and enjoying the coffee-flavored ice cream Veronica made the other day. Romelle joins them later, eats the biggest batch of ice cream and falls asleep next to Shiro on the couch, snoring loudly.

It’s the cue for Shiro to say goodbye, and when he does, he quickly checks his datapad. No new messages. 

Veronica must see the disappointment in his face, because she takes a step forward and offers a hug. With a bemused smile, Shiro accepts it and pats her back.

“I don’t need that pat— you do!”

“Don’t rub it in,” Shiro laughs. 

They part and Veronica holds onto his shoulders for a moment. “It’ll be alright?” she tries and Shiro nods in affirmation, even though he doesn’t feel it will be.

##### ________________

Adam takes his time— ghosts him for a week, and Shiro is still pondering between well-deserved or not, when he finally gets a call.

“Let’s talk,” Adam says shortly. 

Shiro, in the middle of cooking noodles, almost drops his spoon. “Uh— Alright.” 

He hurries to get some clothes that don’t have a ton of spots on them, decides he won’t have the patience to eat, so he packs the pot of noodles on his hoverbike before riding over.

Adam opens the door, expression tight-lipped but not too serious. 

“I brought noodles,” Shiro informs him and holds the pot out. They are cold and don’t look appetizing, but for some reason their appearance is a blessing, because the sad-looking noodle pot breaks the ice between them enough to make them look at each other and laugh. 

“Come in, I’ve got some ketchup to go with that. Your favorite.” It’s clear he’s teasing Shiro about… earlier days, when he never had time to properly eat between classes, but Shiro instantly takes it too seriously.

He steps into the house and protests, “I haven’t eaten noodles with ketchup in forever, and even back then I only did that when I was in the middle of exams—”

“Yeah, yeah. Forgot you’re usually a man of taste.” Adam smiles crookedly. 

Adam unfreezes a brown sauce he’s got somewhere in his freezer, and they eat it together with the microwaved noodles in complete silence. When finished, Adam brews them both coffee for a lack of something else to do. 

Returning with two cups filled to the brim, Adam finally rises to speak. “I wanted to apologize,” he says and places one cup in front of Shiro. “What you said… it made me upset. I had no right to be.”

There it is. It’s the start of an explanation— from Adam a whole bone-hand if you will— and Shiro eagerly takes it. He reaches for the hand that just put down the coffee, grips and holds onto it so Adam can’t recoil.

“Why were you upset?” Shiro asks. 

“I really wanted you to not ask me this,” Adam deflects, with a smile that barely reaches his eyes. But he does sit down closer to Shiro, and intertwines their fingers. And Shiro holds on.

“No such luck,” Shiro smiles, and feels his heart weakly beating at the warmth of their joined hands. 

With the other hand, Adam props his chin up and gazes up softly at Shiro. He reaches out to brush a few of Shiro’s white strands back. “You want honesty?”

“Yes,” Shiro says, breathless.

“Okay.” Adam pulls his hand back. “I don’t really know what it means for you and Keith to be in my life.”

Shiro smiles an apologetic smile. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Sorry for that.”

“Don’t be. We all made our intentions more or less clear.” Adam’s eyes are intense when he looks at him. “When you said you were planning to go, it was like…” he trails off.

“Like…?”

“Like you left me again.”

There’s a lot going on in Shiro’s head at the same time; remnants of another time, mostly baring all the anger and desperation that Shiro cannot say he missed. All of them surround their breakup, which should be long forgotten and not rile him up anymore— but somehow, his thoughts and emotions spiral from then on.

“I never left _you_ ,” he defends himself, and doesn’t stop, not even when he gets surprised at the suppressed anger in his voice, “ _you,_ Adam _,_ didn’t want to be with me.”

There’s no denying that those words were sitting in the back of Shiro’s throat because he chose the worst timing for them to simply spill out now. At Adam’s expression, Shiro feels remorse flooding him, but then he remembers the anger leading up to their initial break-up and all the fights they’ve fought before.

Adam’s voice is slow and steady when he replies to Shiro’s sudden outburst. "I _wanted_ to be with you, but not as your second choice.” Adam brushes through his hair, eyes casting to the side. “Why don't you understand I was angry that you chose space over me?"

"I didn't choose _space_ over you!" Shiro feels his heart beat under the ribcage. "I chose myself! I made my own decision!" 

Adam stares at him quietly, and he almost looks like back then. Sad and tired mostly. And parts dispassionate. 

“If I had stayed on Earth, becoming sicker and sicker and regretted never going out there again, I would have—”

“You would have _hated_ me,” Adam finishes for him. There’s heat in his quiet voice, too. 

Shiro needs them to understand each other, and needs Adam to understand _him_. This time he’s different, _they_ are different, and Shiro won’t give up on him again, and won’t risk for them to pass another five years without as much as one shared word between them—

“You would have been stuck with me. Stuck with a sick husband, and I could not take you regretting your life, _too_.”

“You never were a burden—”

“But I felt like one!” Shiro’s voice becomes agitated, but he doesn’t mean to shout, doesn’t mean to be angry. Who would have thought that after all these years this particular topic still is like pouring alcohol straight into a fire. 

Shiro can’t sit still, and especially not so close to Adam, not when he upsets him again, so he stands up, walks back and forth. For a second, they both don’t say anything, and Shiro trails up and down the room like a restless tiger, indecisive if he’ll chase or will be chased.

Once before Shiro closed his thoughts and emotions off like that, and urged himself to simply not feel the pain. It always worked, no matter if it was physical or not, and nowadays it’s almost impossible to unlock the emotions that his mind instantly blocks out. 

He manages to meet Adam’s eyes again, looks at a pair of gentle, tired brown eyes. 

“I just…I understand you. But I got tired, too. Back then, and now.” Adam’s voice is muffled, and strained. He always was expressive and never immune to emotional hurt.

Adam continues, “I got depressed, too. I was _afraid_ , too. If you got worse, if you died, I—” he breaks off, and everything in Shiro stops. 

“There was no one I could talk to without feeling like I was betraying you,” Adam goes on. “We were so young, but I was always hopeful, even though I was concerned. I looked forward to a life with you.”

The big block of anger inside Shiro gets its first cracks. 

Back then there was never much time to speak about Adam’s fears openly. Theoretically, Shiro knew that Adam naturally was scared of losing him. But in reality, Shiro was occupied with…the sickness and getting whatever he could from life before it was all over.

“I knew you needed to do things for yourself, as much as possible. But to me...it felt like being with me was your consolation prize.”

That’s…Shiro made him feel like that.

“I didn’t care that you had a mind of your own. When the pilot error happened, I—” Adam stops, fingers clutching bundles of hair. “I was-I was alone.”

“Adam,” Shiro says, sitting down next to him. 

“You stopped loving me for quite a while. I knew it back then, but—”

“Adam,” Shiro says again, takes his hand.

“I wanted us to be together. At _any_ cost. But it was hard… it was hard to realize those feelings weren’t mutual.”

“Adam,” Shiro says, thumbing over his palm, heart thumping in his chest. 

“But you were never a burden. I never cared about the hospital visits, about the late night emergencies, keeping on track with your medicine. I wanted you to live, to grow older with me. But you didn’t. I would have done anything, but I needed you to want me, too.”

Shiro’s anger crumbles down at once. He looks at Adam, so broken next to him, and feels the pain of letting down someone who went through everything with him, every bad day, week or even month, and even though he never felt the pain Shiro had, he didn’t feel that much better than him mentally at the prospect of losing someone.

“Adam,” Shiro says another time, and this time Adam's eyes look up to him. The uncertainty is written all over his face. 

“I—“ Adam draws out, then pauses. “I’m sorry I walked out on you. I regret it.”

Shiro takes a long breath. Maybe this was all he ever needed to hear from him. And also—

“I’m sorry I made you feel… unloved.” This time, it’s Shiro who feels inadequate to meet Adam’s gaze and his grounding, brown eyes. He never thought about the possibility that Adam knew something about him that Shiro didn’t. He never thought his one-track mind pushed him away.

“You were right,” Shiro starts, slowly. He doesn’t know if it makes sense for Shiro that he had a right to insist on going to Kerberos, and to decide for himself. Adam… he knows.

“You were, too,” Adam says, pressing the hand that holds his. “We both made a decision. I just wish we talked about it differently.”

Shiro’s reply comes in a weak smile that doesn’t really reach his eyes— only when Adam puts his head on the table with a loud _bonk_ , a movement so unlike him.

“But now we’re here.” Shiro brushes his right hand through Adam’s curls, delicately. The white tips of his prosthetic rub over his scalp and back to his neck. Adam slowly raises his head again and Shiro retreats his hand.

“It’s a mess,” Adam mutters. 

Shiro shrugs. “Yeah.”

And then, completely unexpected, Adam stands up. “I’ve still got a bag of your medical weed,” he says, drawing a loud laugh out of Shiro.

A moment later, they stand in Adam’s living room, both looking at the weed.

"You're a terrible liar," Shiro says with one look at the small bag. There's no way he'd ever forget the blue prescription bags he used to hog in the drawer of his nightstand when his pain got really bad. They don’t look much different from the pills he gets now for his anxiety and depression.

This specific bag, though, wasn't one of them—

"That's your own pot." 

Adam looks at him and shrugs, and it's a sign for Shiro that he caught him red-handed. "Got me. Will you smoke the pot that is not yours with me or not, Takashi?“ 

Shiro looks from the bag between Adam's fingers to his face and back again. He spares them both the discussion of where and why Adam got the stuff, and also why he felt the need to pretend it’s not his. 

"I will smoke the _damn_ pot with you." 

Adam smiles without the same exhaustion prior to this afternoon, and Shiro feels something lift off his heart. He thinks Adam’s smile is endearing, as he takes the rolling paper and bud from Adam and walks back to the table, and knows that Matt was right.

They decide to take the joints and sit outside. It’s been some time since Shiro was really high, and he immediately feels the weed blow through his head and a small amount of nausea. 

Adam has a garden; small, neat, green and only a few flowers, perfect to lie on, and so they do, side by side, and stare into the blue, cloudless sky. 

For Shiro, Keith is the moon, the stars, all the sparkling galaxies and every corner of the universe; he’s endless, and so is Shiro’s love for him.

Adam is the blue sky. And Shiro, he—

“Oh,” he utters and laughs out a puff from the joint. It’s painful at times _because_ it’s Adam. Because... 

“I like you.”

As simple as that.

Adam doesn’t reply but lazily bends over, eyes glassy and wide. He leans down, and it’s soothing, it’s like having a second home, like having a new chance at something old.

It’s not the weed that makes it feel so intoxicating, and so soft at the same time, so familiar but new. It’s Adam, and, okay, well— the weed amplifies it, maybe.

Shiro feels both Adam’s lips and Adam’s feeling of his lips, feels the blue and the black sky surrounding the sun and stars, feels at ease through all the tension of betraying himself.

Adam breaks the kiss but stays close for Shiro to slide his hand over Adam’s neck and rub over the buzz there. He inhales so deep Shiro thinks he could easily steal all of his scent and blow it out of his ear again.

“We should talk with Keith,” Adam presses out. “I don’t. I don’t know what to do.”

And maybe it’s too simple, too rash, too naive to make promises, but Shiro feels warm, happy, and as if what he’s lying on isn’t grass but clouds when he says, “It will all work out.”

Adam kisses him again, feverishly so and Shiro has trouble getting enough air, but he doesn’t mind. He’ll happily drown.

“Adam,” Shiro mutters although he as well is unable to stop kissing, to press and press and slide his lips, angle his head— he’s only glad that future Shiro won’t be embarrassed about them both being so public, panting, gasping, moaning because Adam thankfully doesn’t have many neighbors.

“Yes,” Adam gasps with a roll of hips, holds onto Shiro like he holds onto life. “I’m so— Takashi, you deserve better, I—“

“Fuck me,” Shiro moans and holds onto Adam’s hips, stilling them even though he wants him to continue, roll and press his body against him until they are joined— “Fuck me like you’d fuck him.”

Adam gets up, and for a horrifying second Shiro thinks he’s said too much. Thankfully, the weed slows down every emotion, and when Adam holds out his hands, he’s positive that he won’t face rejection for his request.

“Let’s go inside,” Adam says, eyes big and dark, pulling Shiro by the belt loop of his pants. 

Adam never wants to fuck on the couch, and Shiro knows exactly why. It’s because he doesn’t want the white, silky surface to get dirty. Adam has hardly changed in that department, but as of now, they are sitting both on the white, sleek cushions and it only takes a few minutes for Shiro to end up in his lap. 

With their lips locked, Shiro’s hands roam freely over Adam’s defined smooth chest. Adam’s hands, in turn, settle on his hips, thumbing over the delicate dip there. “Adam,” Shiro sighs and presses his forehead against his, with his white fringe standing up in every direction. Adam waits, patiently, not like he does usually, when he’s cocky, edging on Shiro as much as he can. 

Now he takes his time instead, softly kissing and breathing against the soft stubble of Shiro’s chin. Lingering touches of his lips travel over Shiro’s jaw down to his neck, Adam’s hands still buried in his hair. Shiro can’t help but finally let himself feel the warmth that blooms in his chest when they are together, not only the one in his groin. 

Huffed moans keep escaping Shiro with every delicious drag of Adam’s hands guiding his hips and Adam pushing up against him. 

“Takashi,” Adam mutters, his hands in his hair. He brushes through it, grips it, holds onto it without much strength but more effect— something deeply feral unlocks in Shiro’s gut, unfurling at the both gentle and rough handling at once. 

It’s because Keith’s hair is longer, Shiro wonders and suddenly there’s the image of Keith being in his stead, rolling his hips while Adam grips his long black curls, or even his braid— and before anything really happens, Shiro’s hips stutter and he comes into his pants.

Adam halts and a snort escapes him, and even though Shiro’s certain— or is he?— that he doesn’t mean to ridicule Shiro, he hides his face in the crook of his neck, cheeks red and heated. Thankfully, the weed takes off a part of that embarrassment, but not enough for Shiro to unhide.

“Takashi,” Adam says softly after a while. “Did you just come in your pants?” 

There’s the amusement in his voice and Shiro definitely feels like running out of his home and never coming back. “You ass,” he mutters close to Adam’s ear. 

“* _Your_ ass,” Adam says and pauses, uncertain. He raises one hand and brushes over Shiro’s back in long, soft strokes.

And just like that, Shiro feels like they found their middle.

Just like that, Shiro realizes a few things he wants.

“I’m still hard,” Adam states, again with a smile in his voice. He plays with the white hair plastered in Shiro’s neck. Shiro leaves out a horrendous long sigh to let him know how cocky he’s being. 

But instead of biting back, Shiro rolls his eyes and moves to his knees, the eager fumbling at Adam’s zipper revealing his excitement.

Later Adam fucks him, slow, steady, wild, in all ways that Shiro doesn’t expect him but wants him to. The weed wears off much later than that, after they’ve showered, eaten, and went to bed.

##### ________________

The next morning Shiro wakes from his phone ringing loudly. Adam stirs next to him, sleep-heavy, and shuffling closer a second later. 

He hangs there, nuzzled into Shiro’s side and yawns when Shiro answers the call.

“Hey,” Shiro says into the phone, quietly, even though he’s sure Adam’s already awake and feigning sleep. “Mhmh,” Shiro hums, and that tone makes Adam look up at him curiously. “Love you too, babe. Glad to hear you’re soon here.”

There’s a question in Adam’s eyes as Shiro listens to Keith rambling and talking about the mission, the ride from there to Earth, Acxa as a co-pilot on long rides versus short rides, and so on. Shiro nods along even though Keith can’t see him, hums in between or laughs, at his words, relieved to finally be able to talk to him again.

Adam’s eyes are measuring. Thinking. Wondering. And Shiro cannot make any promises, not without his other half. Not without his, and yes, he feels cheesy thinking this, soulmate.

If Keith was surprised that Shiro asked him to come to Adam’s, he didn’t show it. He just agreed to it, no questions asked. Another round of ‘I love you’s and they end the call, and Shiro looks to Adam, who doesn’t meet his eyes.

“We can talk,” Shiro proposes. “The three of us. See where things are going—”

“I’ll make breakfast.” And just as quickly as he said it, he’s up and out the door.

Shiro sighs heavily and rubs his eyes. For a moment he stays in bed until he decides it’s for the best if he’s just hiding away in the shower.

Keith comes in, and the weirdness of the whole situation accumulates. Thankfully, Keith looks from Adam to Shiro as soon the door opens, and breaks out into laughter. 

Shiro promptly joins. 

They stand like this, Keith in the doorframe holding his stomach, loose hair falling over his shoulder and Shiro opposite him, wiping happy tears away. As soon as he calms himself, Shiro can see Keith clearly. He looks gorgeous albeit a little tired, and Shiro’s heart is squeezing together in his chest, making him feel like an excited puppy.

As soon as both Keith and Shiro completely stop laughing— with an unimpressed Adam in their midst— Keith takes his first tenacious steps closer. Before he takes Adam’s hand, he shoots a questioning look to Shiro, and when Shiro gives him a shrug, leans in to peck Adam on the lips.

It’s surreal, if anything. Shiro doesn’t feel the hot spike of jealousy that he feared he would, but he also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an emotion that is yet to come.

Shiro thinks it’s sweet; Adam smiles down at Keith after the kiss, and squeezes his hand, and Keith smiles back, so shy and soft that Shiro is reminded of the first time he ever saw Keith like that, namely when their relationship just started. Adam and Keith share something yet incomparable with what Keith and Shiro have— which could be summarized as one, very married braincell, really— but it already carries a few things. Vulnerability with each other, for example.

It’s short and sweet, and Keith squeezes that hand that gently holds his one last time before he moves toward Shiro. He dampens down his usual excitement, but when their eyes meet, Shiro feels the sparks flying. The giddy feeling of pure happiness bubbles to the surface, and it’s almost in the form of a sob leaving his body. 

Keith’s arms hold him a second later, squeeze Shiro’s big frame as tight as they can, which is… very tight. But Shiro squeezes back, and they hold each other just like that. 

Blissfully, Shiro closes his eyes and hides his face in the mess of black strands, breathes in the familiar faint scent of his husband that he had missed for too long, feels the beat that pulses against his chest. 

For some time they just stand and hug, until Shiro opens one eye and directly looks at Adam awkwardly hovering closeby, the uncertainty of leaving or staying all written over his face. 

As courtesy, Shiro gently breaks off his hug with Keith and clears his throat. Keith takes a step back, twirling a strand of his hair between his thumb and index finger, slightly biting his lip.

Adam looks at both of them, before he says, “I should go buy groceries.”

Shiro knows the fridge is packed and there can be hardly anything Adam needs right now. “I can go with you,” he proposes, then looks at Keith with wide, surprised eyes, who startled, chimes in.

“Me too,” he says.

Adam furrows his brows. “It doesn’t need three grown men to go get some groceries.”

Keith elbows Shiro, who prematurely spits out: “Depends on the groceries.” Keith’s slight groan is audible to all three of them, but seems to fly over Adam’s head.

His expression doesn't become understanding, or any gentler. If anything, it grows confused.

“I thought you two might need some time to catch up,” he points out after another long pause to get the point across, losing all of the subtleness Shiro has known him for. It’s not like they didn’t understand before, they both simply decided to ignore the broad hint.

Now they both exchange a glance, and Shiro really hopes he’s reading Keith’s expression right.

“We would be glad to accompany you,” Shiro says politely, while Keith nods enthusiastically.

Again, Adam pauses and looks at them both, then turns his head away. For a moment it seems like he will stop them both, and coil away. But then he reaches for his wallet and smiles.

“Change of plans then. Let’s get brunch together.”

Of course Shiro needs to point out later, when they got themselves a table at one new pop-up restaurant, that Adam didn’t need any groceries. Of course Adam bites back and says that if both him and Keith wouldn’t always tornado in and out of his life unforeseen, he didn’t need to make up excuses.

Keith orders for them and bites back a laugh, grins at Adam’s rosey cheeks and pinches at Shiro’s frozen smile. “How did this even happen between you two?” he asks with neutral curiosity albeit amusement, and gets a shrug from both parties.

The waiter brings their food shortly after; long silver plates with cheese, meat and fruits, baskets with bread, buns, and soft pretzels. “European breakfast for 2+1,” the waiter reads from the bill and leaves them to themselves.

“I mean, I meant to ask the same,” Shiro says and reaches for a piece of bread and a knife, “How did this happen?” He motions back and forth between Adam and Keith.

Adam shrugs again, exchanges one look with Keith who seems to fail at trying to recall how exactly it happened, and rights his glasses. 

“Keith wore a nice shirt to visit Iverson at the Garrison, and I came over to say ‘hi’.”

“Wow,” Shiro huffs, almost choking on his bite of buttered bread. He looks to Keith and grins. “Shallow, but _alright_.” It’s clear from his dry tone that he doesn’t mean it. Adam still squints at him, but not without a small smile.

Keith seems to be as surprised as Shiro is, or even more so. He turns to Adam. “You only asked if I was around here often. And told me your sob-story of how you wanted to check out the Mexican place around the corner but had no friends to go with.”

Now Adam looks smug, “I’ve got eyes, too.”

Keith looks scandalized for one moment, but wears an embarrassed grin in the next. “I can’t believe I felt bad for feeling attracted to you at first.” He reaches for the grapes without reaching them.

“Wow,” Shiro says again, plops a few grapes from their stem and drops them one after another into Keith’s hand. “Flirting with a taken man, Adam. I’m _shocked_.”

“You wanted to know how this happened, right?” Adam turns to Keith with a pointed look and a finger pointing from him to Shiro, “Takashi once invited me for a drink to catch up as friends, fucked me in the bathroom, and forgot his wallet so I had to pay for the both of us.”

Keith almost drops the grapes, then shoves them in one by one, laughing. “Shiro!” he exclaims, pretending to be shocked. Shiro's smile is tight-lipped. 

“Thanks for telling _him_ , Adam,” he says, with bite.

“What?” Adam rolls his eyes, and now for the first time reaches to take food from the plates in front of them. He chooses the soft pretzel and spreads a vegetarian spread on it. “I thought this thing between us would work best with honesty.” 

_This thing,_ the thing that they haven't really defined yet. The thing that neither Keith nor Shiro really have spoken about yet. 

If Shiro knows one thing, then it's that he cannot let go easily off Adam, and that Keith too is attached to him. In only a few interactions Shiro noted that Adam and him have a private, gentle relationship just for them, and… he wonders if he could jeopardize it unintentionally with his own, partly unresolved feelings.

Keith seems to break out of his setback state first, reaches for Adam's free hand on the table and takes it in his. Is such a soft gesture, Shiro notes, and feels pride bloom in his ribcage that Keith changed that much; from a person who could only trust Shiro to someone who trusted his friends and, well…

 _Adam_.

Adam, who is the only one brave enough to address the elephant in the room, but also took the easy way out by throwing the question at Keith and him.

"Honesty is good," Shiro agrees, while they all resume staring in front of him and eating from their own plates.

"You need to say what you want out of this too, you know? Adam."

At Keith's words, Adam looks up. Keith puts him on the spot, just like he did with Shiro and him a few minutes before.

"As you said, honesty works best," he adds and takes a bun, cuts it with the bread knife.

Shiro almost expects Adam to be pissed, and not to take those words the way he does; understanding.

But he also wouldn't be Adam, if he wasn't as emotional as calculated he is. "I think the truth is, if we're being truthful...that my wish doesn't matter as much as yours do." He looks up from Keith to Shiro.

"But it does matter," Keith insists. "I told you I like you. I, we wouldn't just drop you—"

"Shiro told me that you plan to leave the planet next year," Adam interrupts him. "I don't want to discuss something inevitably meant to not work out."

The words make Keith effectively show up. When Shiro feels his eyes on him, he also feels shame creep to his cheeks. It wasn't right to tell Adam; and now he isn't even sure anymore why he did.

"Sorry," he mumbles, but Keith reaches out under the table, and squeezes his hand. He's not mad.

"Let's enjoy the food, shall we?" Adam proposes and takes the apple with the deepest green from the fruit plate and bites into it. For a few minutes, the conversation stills, and the only noise is the happy background chatter of friends, families and couples around them. Shiro's heart sinks to his feet, together with the weight of Keith's hand. He doesn't dare look to his side and see what Keith looks like, and after a while, his husband pulls his hand back to continue eating.

The conversation between Shiro and Adam goes back to casual topics; they are used to brushing over fights or bad news— a relict of a time when they were together in the most precarious times of Shiro's health and after they broke up and still saw each other at their shared work place— but Keith isn't. He remains quiet.

Shiro is used to falling in and out of love, to get his heart broken or his future plans swept out like a rug under him. He's sure it's not that different for Keith either, but... he's someone who always believed in a solution, and now Adam took away his hope to find one.

On the way back, Shiro thinks about the things he left at Adam's house and that he shouldn't forget to take with him. He's glad that sadness always takes some time for him to set in; because he knows he has to care for Keith after. Vulnerable, heart-on-his-sleeve-Keith. He needs to be there for him.

Sometimes, Shiro thinks he has learned everything about him, but then he surprises him again.

Adam unlocks the door and steps in, leaves it open for them to come in after him, but Keith pulls Shiro back to face him. "What if we take him with us?" he asks, and the sadness from earlier seems to be blown away. "Get a slightly bigger ship after a while— I can sleep with Kosmo for the first couple of months—"

"Keith," Shiro puts his arms up on his shoulder, squeezing his right one with his prosthesis, "he lives here, he got a job, a life—"

"No friends who go to eat Mexican with him! A teaching job at the Garrison that he could take up again whenever he wants to—"

"He's not gonna come with us," Shiro argues.

"And you'd just give up on him?" Keith's eyes burn like fire, but Shiro? Shiro's all out of fuel to burn. It happened before, it'll happen again.

"I don't think he wants to be with us."

"He thinks he's got no place with us!"

"Then," and Shiro takes in a big breath, "are you willing to give that to him?"

It shuts Keith up effectively.

"Are you willing to take him with us, with the possibility that it doesn't work out with the three of us?"

"He can always go back—"

"He hasn't piloted a ship in years, let alone anything but Garrison-built—"

"We can bring him back if it doesn't work out?"

"Like a puppy back to the shelter?" Shiro smirks humorlessly.

Keith sighs. "Shiro."

"Keith."

Keith furrows his brows, and thinks for a few moments. "Do you _not_ want to be with him?" The question catches Shiro off guard.

There are a thousand things he could say; yes, that he's afraid of changes, and he's afraid that him and Adam haven't. But... no, that Adam has grown on him again, and he can imagine the three of them alarmingly well together.

"I'm afraid," he says, holding Keith's widening gaze. "I'm just afraid... of many things; and that he doesn't want me."

Keith holds his gaze too, his beautiful purple eyes boring into him with intensity. He raises his hands to each side of Shiro's face, thumbs running in slow circles over his cheeks. "Hey," Keith's voice is soft, "I don't think Adam puts up with anyone he doesn't like."

Shiro emits a breathy laughter. "Right."

"We're similar, in that way," Keith grins.

"And different in every other," Shiro remarks. He feels the soft press of lips from his husband's mouth, and an enormous weight lifts off his heart.

"What will you do?" Keith asks him, eyes so earnest and open to hear his decision, first and foremost.

Shiro raises a hand to Keith's temple and touches him softly there, brushes some hair back. For a moment, it's just them, and Shiro lays his forehead against Keith's and closes his eyes as he allows the anxious flutter of his nerves rush over him.

He's not a teenager anymore; he's married to another man, and yet the thought of it is worse than jumping off a cliff—

"We— We'll ask him."

Keith doesn't say anything, but Shiro feels his smile.

"Objectively, this is a bad idea," Adam tells them while he's putting dishes into the dishwasher. Shiro's grin freezes, and so does Keith's.

"But," Adam continues, closes the dishwasher, turns around and leans against the kitchen counter, "I think some time off teaching would be great."

"I don't understand if that's a yes," Keith mutters.

"I think it's a yes," Shiro mutters back.

Adam rolls his eyes. "It's a yes," he clarifies, and it's the sign for Keith to charge forward and hug him. Shiro comes slowly after him, and Adam holds out an arm to him, too.

Shiro leans in for a quick kiss, and then the three of them in the warm, sunlight filled kitchen, simply hugging for a while.

They have to negotiate a litte; because it's new for all of them. What it means for them to be together as three people, or if they'd rather have it the same way they did before— that Adam is in a relationship with the two of them, but they all know of each other.

Mostly, they agree to go with the flow, as Keith suggested, and test out what feels good. There's still some time left until they plan to leave Earth, and not only Adam needs to plan ahead for that in between, but they will also have time to figure things out.

When dinner comes, they are exhausted from talking. Adam tells them that he won't care if they need some time alone, and even though they both agree that they might at some point, they do want to stay. They get themselves comfortable on the white, clean couch in front of the TV; Keith doesn't miss a chance to mock Adam for buying it only after he pointed out how Adam cannot even watch movies in his own home for forever. Shiro gets them snacks and drinks from the kitchen and they decide on a comedy to keep things light.

Adam mocks the plotline, obnoxiously so, Shiro snorts too loud at the jokes, and Keith falls asleep before the plot picks up. Later, they move to the bedroom and realize that the bed might be just big enough for the three of them, but it stays at that. _Comfy_ is different.

Nonetheless, it feels good to share the bed and the time together.

Keith crashes against Shiro's side, and Shiro tentatively lays himself down against Adam's shoulder. Together, they breathe in the quiet of the darkness and listen to Keith's sound breathing.

"Are you happy?" Shiro wonders quietly, loud enough for Adam to hear. Adam drops his head against his, then softly nuzzles into his side.

"If you told me 6 years ago that this is what I would end up with, I wouldn't have believed you," he breathes softly. "But yeah. Yeah, I'm happy, Takashi."

Shiro turns his head to him, eyes hopeful, open, and vulnerable. He learned this from Keith. "Yeah?" he asks softly and receives a kiss that lingers.

"Yeah."

Saying goodbye the next day shouldn't feel so hard, but it does.

Work resumes at the Garrison for Shiro, and although they don't plan on launching the Atlas back into space yet, Shiro needs to oversee all the smaller projects this time around...which means being early at the office every morning. The commute from the shack to the Garrison is shorter, and he won't need to wake up Adam earlier than he has to when going to work. Keith suggests he could stay over at Adam's— after all they haven't seen each other in a while— but Adam declines and says it's good when they each have some time of their own and meet up next time.

"He was excited," Keith says when Shiro and he are on the way to his dad's shack, their home. They both won't be able to see Adam together for a while; if worst comes to worst it won't be before next year that they really have time to spend together.

"I am, too," Shiro hums, and takes Keith's hand in his. He feels the smaller palm squeeze his, and squeezes back. He wonders how things will change when it's not just them anymore.

"I can't wait to spend time with you together, for a longer time," Shiro admits then, deep in thought. He realizes two things: That he spends most of his time when he can with Keith, and yet he doesn't know everything about him, and things always stay exciting when he learns something new about him. And that with Adam, it was the complete opposite. He felt familiar even though they haven't spent time together for so long. "I can't wait to learn more things about you, and him. And you together, I guess." Shiro twirls a strand of his white fringe between his fingers, and fights the blush that creeps on his face.

"Yeah. Can't wait either," Keith grins wickedly.

Later, they watch the moon and the stars together, and they talk about Adam, they talk about each other, and about what is yet to come.

"It will be something new," Shiro says and means it. He won't hang back in the past. With Keith and Adam, this will be a new territory, but it already feels safe.

"Can't wait."

And when Keith smiles at him and asks shyly if they should still call Adam over later, Shiro knows the three of them will be alright.

##### ________________


End file.
